Gentlemen,
We work with Network Rail and it took us two years to get permission to fly under very stringent guidelines. We actually worked with Amey Plc to submit to NR the use of UAVs for aerial inspection 3 years ago, and it was only after several demonstrations to NR that they agreed there was a business benefit, but still issues a blanket ban on UAV activity over their property.
Since then NR has now allowed a few companies to operate, we believe we are the only UK company that is allowed to fly sub 20Kgs (with very specialist equipment) and there are only 4 others who are sanctioned to fly sub 7kgs and operate standard camera systems.
When we are to film adjacent or over their property there is a series of hoops that have to be jumped through before flights can take place, and this is onerous. Basically above all your standard flight risk assessments you then have to do a NR SSOW assessments. This needs to be submitted to all relevant parties, drivers, signalmen, operations teams etc before you can fly, and depending upon the location you may have to have personnel with the signalman down the track who you are in contact with to ensure that there are no trains transitting. Or if you are lucky the minimum is a spotter at each end of the line you want to fly over,
Someone mentioned looking at the Network Rail timetable, but as we all know NR aren't as efficient as the Japanese yet, but that aside, there are no timetables for freight traffic which runs in-between standard commuter traffic.
So unless you have a significant value job, it's difficult to be cost effective, as there are numerous hoops to jump through, and if you are approached by a sub contractor of NR they will know that there is a NR directive banning UAV's except from sanctioned contractors.
Happy to discuss in more detail is someone wants to know more
Cheers
Andrew