Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade — Action Report (and ‘Pictures’)

An action report as promised.
All cam­eras were seized by police — instead sketch­es have been drawn to doc­u­ment the action.

A group of indi­vid­u­als who met through the Ris­ing Tide net­work and were inspired to take direct action against the route caus­es of cli­mate change. They main­tain an 8‑hour block­ade of coal trains car­ry­ing fuel from Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion.

An aer­i­al view of the mine, the protest groups and the police response

ACTION

On 26th April 2010 in the ear­ly after­noon a group of indi­vid­u­als made their pres­ence known to staff and secu­ri­ty at Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil. Hav­ing ensured their pres­ence around the tracks was known and no trains would be leav­ing until they were removed, they pro­ceed­ed to lock them­selves to the train track using chains and super glue. This sin­gle track is used to trans­port train-loads of mined coal to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion, and the first and only train for the day was due to leave soon after. Legal observers and sup­port were present.

It took a long time for police to make the lengthy jour­ney from the near­est police sta­tion, how­ev­er they sent their friend­ly neigh­bour­hood heli­copter on plen­ty of point­less gas-guz­zling jaunts around the area. Once the police prop­er­ly arrived they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the four sup­port peo­ple, placed them in hand­cuffs and made them wait beside the track while a cut­ting team arrived to remove the group who had locked on to the rails. Despite the hand­cuffs, the sup­port team con­tin­ued to pro­vide food and water to the lock-on team. Lat­er the police also arrest­ed the legal observ­er who was clear­ly on the oth­er side of the fence and not on the track. After approx­i­mate­ly 4 and a half hours of lengthy response times and a paper-chain of police bureau­cra­cy that group was removed and arrest­ed.

The first group locked on com­plete with wash­ing-line ban­ner

As this group of peo­ple were being led off the train tracks they informed the police of some incred­i­bly irri­tat­ing news. A sec­ond group had been hid­ing just round the cor­ner and were as they spoke emerg­ing and lock­ing onto the tracks with heavy duty lock-on tubes. Clear­ly too exhaust­ed from their hard work oper­at­ing bolt crop­pers to take a quick stroll down the line to check this out, the heli­copter took to the skies once more. One quick swoop con­firmed what it had failed to notice on its many swoops ear­li­er — four pro­test­ers with a legal observ­er and sup­port, cheer­ful­ly wav­ing from the train track before, now final­ly sure their pres­ence had been not­ed, calm­ly tak­ing their places on roll mats and rugs and lock­ing on inside two lock-on tubes placed in con­ve­nient gaps under the rail­way line. By this point it was 5.00pm.

A net­work rail engi­neer ran a cou­ple of hun­dred metres down the tracks to check upon the new group. The police drove. Again on arrival they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the legal observ­er and sup­port, who were cheer­ful­ly read­ing a nov­el to those locked. Despite fail­ing to pro­duce on demand a Risk Assess­ment of the cut­ting oper­a­tion (but plen­ty of whing­ing about how dan­ger­ous it is) it took the cops until 8pm to cut open the tubes — one of which was mul­ti-lay­ered, and the oth­er of which had a very thick met­al lay­er. A spe­cial groan was reserved for when they realised the pro­test­ers had not just chained but also super­glued their hands togeth­er inside the tubes and had to send for some indus­tri­al glue remover.

The sec­ond group flag­ging down the chop­per before lock­ing on

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells. It is believed that no coal left Ffos-y-Fran that day.

The sec­ond group in posi­tion

CONSEQUENCES

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells.

It appears that legal observers and sup­port roles were orig­i­nal­ly arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of con­spir­a­cy, how­ev­er they were sub­se­quent­ly charged with the same charge as those who had locked on. All 18 were even­tu­al­ly charged with “Unlaw­ful Act With Intent To Obstruct The Rail­ways” con­trary to sec­tion 35 of the Mali­cious Dam­age Act 1861. This rather quaint law designed to pro­tect the inter­ests of pri­vate landown­ers over 150 years ago car­ries a rather less quaint max­i­mum sen­tence of life in prison. How­ev­er the pro­test­ers have stat­ed that they are not antic­i­pat­ing any­thing approach­ing that kind of sen­tence as the law is obvi­ous­ly out of date and ample safe­ty mea­sures were tak­en to ensure there would be no dan­ger to the train, the train dri­ver, the police or the pro­test­ers.

All were bailed to return to Merthyr Tyd­fil Mag­is­trates Court at 10am on 10th May 2010. All were bailed “not to be upon or allow your­self to be upon any prop­er­ty owned, leased or rent­ed by British rail net­work”. They were allowed to trav­el home by train that day how­ev­er any future train trips had to be cleared by arrest­ing offi­cers. Those who gave fixed address­es were bailed to reside at those address­es. Those who did not give fixed address­es were bailed to reside at con­tact address­es, despite mak­ing it clear they did not have any per­mis­sion to live there and had no con­nec­tion with those address­es oth­er than being able to receive post from those address­es. Some were also bailed to sign in reg­u­lar­ly at local police sta­tions. One of those arrest­ed was bailed to reside in Corn­wall but sign in dai­ly at Bath Police Sta­tion with­out the use of trains!