IT seemed like a dream place to live. With their leafy secluded garden, Matt and Gill Tipple hardly noticed the trains that breezed just past their home.

However, the charming countryside scene disa-ppeared after the axemen from a railway maintenance company moved like an express train.

When Matt and Gill left their home next to the Eastleigh-Chandler's Ford railway line for work they had a mature, private garden.

By the time they returned, all the plum trees and vegetation had been hacked away leaving their back garden open to the full gaze of rail passengers and the deafening noise of heavy freight trains using the line.

Now the couple's young children are just like the Railway Children as passengers wave to them as the trains pass the 60ft garden.

Network Rail says the work had to be done on safety grounds but the Tipples are angry

"We were horrified when we came home.

"It is disgusting that they could do that to somebody's residential amenity," said 42-year-old Gill who works as a midwife.

The couple say that the single chain perimeter fence now standing alongside the railway line at their home in Archers Road, Eastleigh, offers no protection to their four-year-old son Cameron and his two-year-old brother Murray, when they are playing in the garden.

Matt, 38, who works in Hampshire County Coun-cil's environment department, said: "Petroleum trains thunder past with 25 to 30 wagons and there are also freight trains heavily laden with chipping stones piled above the height of the wagons and there is nothing to protect our family from falling debris."

The Tipples say they contacted Network Rail asking for a replacement fence to be installed, but nothing has been done.

Matt said: "My first option would be a brick wall - but it would be great to have a substantial 6ft wooden panel fence with concrete posts.

"It would cost about £2,000 and we can't afford it - but why should we?

"When you consider the money spent on the new Chandler's Ford railway station, a few thousand for a new fence for us is a drop in the ocean."

When the couple moved into their end of terrace home about six years ago they knew that that they had a railway line alongside their garden.

Gill said: "We were quite happy because we could not see the trains.

"But now our garden is so opened up that we have the railway running the whole side of the property."

Network Rail told the Daily Echo that safety guidelines on vegetation within the railway boundary required them to remove trees and shrubs within five metres of the railway line, while fencing used at the Tipples' garden met railway standards for preventing access to the line.

A spokesman said freight and engineering trains on the section of track were permitted to travel at a maximum of 35mph.

He added: "We have no reason to believe that the passage of trains at this low speed could present any danger to lineside neighbours.

"In addition, any dangerous goods such as flammable liquids are transported in enclosed wagons in accordance with strict safety regulations.

"Network Rail has been in open communication with Mr and Mrs Tipple about the issues that they have raised."