A closer look
Autumn foliage creates a massive crisis for the British railway system every single year, causing thousands of hours in severe train delays. When train wheels crush dead leaves against the steel tracks, the immense heat and pressure bake the organic matter into a hard, slippery residue that is chemically similar to Teflon. This black ice of the railway world ruins the friction trains need to accelerate safely and to stop without sliding past the station platforms. Transit authorities are forced to deploy specialized laser trains and high-pressure water jets just to blast this natural non-stick coating off the rails. It is genuinely comedic that billions of dollars worth of heavy industrial machinery can be entirely defeated by some crunchy foliage falling off a local oak tree. Humans have managed to put rovers on Mars, but a wet leaf still remains the ultimate nemesis of the modern daily commute
