My favourite local nature reserve has a railway line passing through it. The line-side fence on the inaccessible side of the tracks, has over the years had numerous pairs of boots nailed to its wooden posts. This is obviously some sort of railway custom, has anyone seen this before, or know what it's all about?

Possible explanations...for good luck? Memorials to men who had died?

Apparently in the United States it was an old custom to nail up boots to a fence to use as a receptacle for mail, but that would not seem to apply here!

Kingfisher

It must be some sort of memorial or superstition, it would be interesting to know who put it up.

Every tine I see the boots I wonder about them. I’ve asked the question many times but nobody has been able to come up with a positive answer. There are many pairs of boots hung along a ¼ mile length of line and they are not really accessible except from the railway line. There is a pedestrian level crossing from one part of the reserve to the other in the centre of the stretch, so you could walk along the line from there, but it's not something I'd want to risk given the number of trains that use the line. The crossing itself is around ¼ mile from the reserve car park and the nearest road, so I think they have to have been put there by railway workers, but given the distance the site is from the nearest town there have to be a lot more convenient places for the workers to hang their boots then there.

I would like to be able to get a look inside the boots, as I think they must be good for wildlife, providing good nesting sites for mice and birds.