Yesterday I saw a BNSF train with more than 50 cars of old ties. Moreover, I have seen thousands of old ties stacked up along the UP from Waco to Temple and from Holland, TX to Taylor, TX.
What happens to the old ties?
There was a time when the best of them might end up at a garden center for you to buy to landscape around your house.
Any more, they have to be remediated, although I have no clue as to how that happens.
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Most are used as fuel in co-generation plants after being ground-up. A few find their way into yards and backtracks (or shortlines) if they make the grade.
When my wife and I bought our house in Dallas, the driveway was lined on one side with old railroad ties. We kept them in place for more than 10 years but ultimately disposed of them. I don’t remember how we got rid of them.
On CSX when ties are replaced, in many cases, they are cut out of the track and the tie butts get loaded to co-generation plants for disposal.
As far as landscaping is concerned, they are the cheapest to use for retaining walls but also fall apart the quickest. Most landscaping companies are not skilled enough to install them properly so in some cases they fall apart in less than 5 years. Properly installed they only last 15-20 years at the most.
Back in the day (mid to lat 60’s), both the NP and MILW in Montana cut the ties in half and burned them on the ROW. Thirty years later, I bought a bunch of old ties at Home Depot for $7 each for the back yard.
About 1986 I bought three or four ties that had once supported the Phoebe Snow and the Lake Cities. The last tie was rotting and falling apart when I had a guy with a truck come by last week and take it off my hands. I paid $35 for the three or four ties; I gave him $20 and a big tip to get rid of one. The city wasn’t interested in taking it, as it had creosote and is considered unsuitable for composting.
If I had to do it over I’d never have bought them in the first place. Railroad ties never look like anything else. Better gardeners use stones, bricks or concrete.
Crossties (Railroad) Recycling and Disposal
https://askinglot.com/open-detail/635949
"Recycling/Disposal Options
Recycling/disposal options vary by location due to the availability of secondary materials markets and state and local rules. In 2008, the Railroad Tie Association (RTA) conducted a crosstie disposal survey. The results are:
- Disposed of by approved/permitted cogeneration: 53.77%
- Reused for commercial landscaping: 14.40%
- Reused for residential landscaping: 14.36%
- Reused for commercial farms (fence posts, etc.): 5.17%
- Disposed of in approved/permitted landfills: 5.12%
- Reused as cascaded ties for railroad application: 4.70%
- Disposed of by approved/permitted gasification: 2.49%
The most widely used disposal option is use as a biofuel in cogeneration plants. Prior to burning as a fuel, the crossties are shredded using heavy-duty equipment that can process 20 tons of crossties per hour. The shredded material is then hauled to a cogeneration plant for use as fuel."
Using old ties
I remember seeing the old ties smoldering along the PRR between Altoona and Harrisburg. The EPA put an end to that practice.
At least in Memphis, there are or were businesses that bought and stockpiled them, with names like ‘Tie Yard’ and a caboose for an office.
I remember seeing this done on the C&O years ago - two large saws cut the ties inside the guage, resulting in three pieces. The two outside pieces were kicked out and the middle piece was picked up and kicked to the outside of the guage.
These days, I mostly see the entire tie pushed/pulled out to be replaced by the new tie. Those whole ties usually end up in large piles along the ROW, to be picked up later by either a truck or a train of gons equipped with a crane.
Because creosote is environmentally unfriendly, old ties are not the best thing to have decaying in your garden. From the railroads’ point of view, because of their past ownership and then sale, there is the possibility of a later date in court resulting from subsequent use or misuse, since the railroads are assumed to have deep pockets. It’s much safer from a liability perspective to dispose of them in a co-gen plant.
The railway museum I volunteer at is stuck with a large number of them from past track repairs. So we have spread them out on the ground to form a large deck in our laydown/material storage area, to keep everything off the ground and out of the mud. Nothing like getting two birds stoned at once!
CN ships used ties to a incinerator/co-gen plant in Quebec, and no longer sells or even gives them away due to the above-mentioned liability and environmental issues.
We still get people showing up and asking to buy some, if no one is around I usually give them directions to one of the many old tie piles that are still found near the track in rural areas. Of course I also mention that they didn’t hear this from me.
These days used railroad ties and their dsposal are a ‘thorny’ issue; for the reasons that cx500 mentioned: environmental issues surrounding the remaining creosote residue in those ties. (include, careful of legal issues,and those enviromental issues, as well. )
Over the last couple of months in this area (wellington,ks., via mulvane,ks. augusta,ks and into the line through the Flint Hills areas) we have seen a fairly heavy(scheduled(?) maintenance program around this area on the the BNSF’s lines. Many carloads of new ties distributed and later old replaced ties loaded for transit to a disposal facility(?).
All sorts of activities for lineside observers to see, and their MOW crew’s ‘critters’ running back and forth; not to menton the contractor trains, GREX Ballast trains, BNSFs own automated GPS ballast train, and rail grinders from LORAM.
The used ties seem to be taken out ‘whole’ ,and loaded in cars, and on flatbeded "Brent’ trucks for their trips to where ever their tie heaven is? Farther East or North(?) they built new track facilities, installed switches, which also got some loads of CWR. Not much CWR was installed around here, this time, mostly tie renewal. [Note: for Mike 90]
Ties that have some life left in them might be reused for trackage that sees lighter duty. Or they may be sold to short lines or tourist railroads.
In years past, I’ve seen ties replaced that didn’t look too bad at a casual glance. Now a days in the era of PSR and what seems to be longer cycles between tie gangs, there aren’t many that don’t look “well - worn” now.
We just had a tie gang go through (still working over around the Cedar Rapids area, I believe) and it’s been said it was a few years over due.
I also assume we’re talking wood ties. Concrete ties around here get ground up.
Jeff
CN just dumps the old concrete ties in great big piles beside a back track, usually but not always out of sight of towns and major roads.
Over the past couple years they have started salvaging some of the “better” ones for use in curves on branchlines, some of these have already failed. Not exactly a surprise, considering they sat outside for years.
Concrete ties cannot be used at or near level crossings, as road salt corrodes them.
FRom what I’ve heard concrete ties haven’t turned out to be the panacea everyone thought they’d be. Maybe I’ve heard wrong? Or are some better than others?
I’ve heard that they don’t weather derailments well, tending to crack as wheels roll across them while wood simply gets scarred, except in the worst cases (ie, tracks are really ripped up).
This would change a simple, all cars upright derailment into the replacement of potentially a lot of ties.