I am in the San Diego area and need about 30. Does anyone have or know where I get get either free or cheap?
Because of the creosote you will find these harder to get , I believe it’s against the law in some places to sell them, they are very high on the list of hazardous materials, don’t use them around a vegetable garden.
What are you going to use them for?
What about treated wood timbers?
Consider resin-fiber simulated wood timbers.
Andrew
What I would do is try and get a number for you local Yard Master, or someone local there in the yard, and they can get you to the right person to find out if they have some old ties that they are getting rid of or not.
I want to use them for a landscaping project. If I can get them, they will be part of a retaining wall. Everyone, thanks for responding and your advise it’s much appreciated!
Rediculously overblown statement…(Kinda funny when you look at what’s left in the tie at retirement and the tie weighs less than half of its original weight)
On a Class 1, Yardmaster/Trainmaster etc. has nothing to do with the plant (ties included)…Find out from the roadmaster who is salvaging the ties under contract to the railroad and talk to the vendor (Wutzke/Pacific/Jimco/Bridgewater/RailWorks/TYO/SoCal/RailWorks/Progressive Rail etc.)
With the cut-throat environment on the railroads these days, NOBODY wants to get into the tie selling business. The liability headaches are huge and the railroad P&M beancounters are insanely protective of what they justify as being their turf. (The tie contractor is also rersponsible for disposal of scraps and broken/unmarketable ties - gets rid of the cherrypicking nonsense that happens - tie contractor jealously guards what is marketable.)
MC-Anybody grinding up old ties out your way? WSOR converted all of their removals from this year’s tie program to chips which were quickly removed to points unknown. Can’t imagine that they are a good idea for mulch, but somebody must have a plan. Composites? Or do we even want to know?
Jay: Co-Generation Power Plant Fuel
Practically all of the major garden centers here in Arizona sell old railroad ties.
A rail line was recently removed near here and all of the crossties, rail, etc. were tagged with warning posters as being the property of a railroad salvage company.
I’m not a fanatical environmentalist, the results of exposure to creosote is documented, a very very dangerous material , any health person will attest to this toxin, one health technician equates creosote to burying small amounts of uranium in your carrot patch. ( ever wonder where that creosote goes after leaching from the tie???) No one will reccommend using old ties around playgrounds or vegetable gardens, that’s a fact.
Potentially dangerous when in a new tie. After absorbtion and decay in a 30-50 year old tie, hardly dangerous. The percentage of creosote in a tie, new vs. old, is quite different. Old railroad ties in gardens and playgrounds very common here, especially where retaining walls are required. The frequently mis-used/ abused concept is the relative density of the material in the preserved material [ keeps getting equated with dense new material right out of the can]. A used tie is no more dangerous, properly used, than old asphalt.
Where does the creosote go? The process of treating the tie uses various fluids under pressure and heat to diffuse creosote into the tie. In the field, the creosote diffuses back out of the tie. Almost all of it is reduced to CO2 and H2O by the action of the sun and air. The sun’s UV breaks down the large creosote molecules into lighter molecules that either oxidize or evaporate. As the creosote oxdizes from the surface, more diffuses from the interior to replace it - repeating the Uv/oxidation cycle. And since creosote is not water soluble – almost none leaches into the ballast or soil.
dd
That Creosote smell makes me think of New York Central and Penn Central Green Boxcars.
Andrew
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Isn’t creosote still used on utility poles? And they are in each and every neighborhood. Yet I haven’t heard of any controversy about environmental and health effects of utility poles.
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The reason that there is such a widely held belief in the exaggerated hazard of creosote is that the news media is constantly promoting that view along with all their other hazards and tragedies. If I am not mistaken, creosote has been banned from retail sale to the public, so this adds to the perception of the creosote hazard. About 15 years ago, I had to get rid of a bunch of ties that I had torn out of a retaining wall. Lots of people told me that they would be considered toxic waste, and would be very hard to dispose of. This was common knowledge even then, but it was incorrect nevertheless. I called the garbage collector, and they just came out for a special pickup, and took them to the landfill for the normal rate.
If I were considering the use of ties to build a retaining wall, I would worry about the longevity. There is an attraction with ties if they are free, but you still have to load, transport, unload, and place them, so the labor component is sky high. If I were going to build a timber retaining wall that I expected to last long enough to justify the labor, I would use .6 CCA treated timber. Then I would know that I would only need to build the wall once. If you are building a wall on a property that you plan to sell, then longevity might not be an issue. However, due to the universal misinformation, you can bet that any prospective buyer is going to question of the safety of the wall if it contains creosote.
Greetings,
My father worked maintenance of way for Southern Railway for many years. He would often come home with the smell of creosote in his work clothes and you could even detect it in the cab of his beat-up Chevy truck. I went with him on several occasions to watch the track crews lay new ties and rail or clean up a derailment site. The smell of creosote to me says “railroad”. I grew to like the smell and when I am near it now it brings back memories.
Gregory
I read a couple of weeks ago, DM&E had a large pile of used ties waiting for “proper” disposal. They accidently caught on fire. The volunteer FD could only protect a nearby structure. Hmmm.
I saw a lumber rack (railroad car) headed west last week that was full of bundles of used ties - so they have some value somewhere.
dd
The realtor who sold us our house put himself through college after he got permission from the railroad, I think Conrail, to collect all the old ties after another contractor had pulled up a track. He would sell them to garden centers all over. He hired two guys to do all the work and he still made a bundle. He sold them a pick-up load at a time.
This is from the EPA’s website:
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Are railroad ties safe for me to use for landscaping around my home?
There are no approved uses of creosote to treat wood for residential use. The Agency is aware that creosote-treated railroad ties are being used in the residential setting for landscape purposes and, in some instances, as a border around gardens. Such uses in residential settings are not intended uses of creosote and have not been considered in the preliminary risk assessment. If you do have creosote-treated wood in your yard, you are reminded to consult the handling precautions outlined above in this document. -
How does one dispose of creosote-treated wood?
Homeowners should not encounter creosote-treated wood in the residential environment. If they do, it can be disposed of by ordinary trash collection (i.e., as municipal solid waste). Do not compost or mulch sawdust or remnants from creosote-treated wood. For further guidance on disposal of municipal solid waste, contact EPA’s Office of Solid Waste at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/hhw.htm
20+ years ago, I worked for a lumberyard that dealt in used ties. Every time they went on sale for $5.99, we would sell a lot. Inevitably, people would send a Grandpa, with his arm in a sling, to buy a bunch of ties. Of course, he would have a stock trailer to haul them in, as he just came from the stockyards after dropping off his hogs![xx(]