Are there any class one railroads in Amercia that have concrete sleepers under a turnout or switch other than possibly the Northeast Corridor?
Note: if you don’t see a photo, it means I’m over my allotted daily tranfer. Check back latter.
CSX recently installed one around here. I posted a topic (I think on trains.com here) about how citizens of the small community down the line from me where they installed it is complaining that it is shaking houses from their foundations.
Yes! I did read that, but I wasn’t sure whether on not the the turnout had concrete sleepers under it. There is a disagreement in another forum over the existance of such a beast.
Thanks for the super quick responce.
The debate is over the durability of the sleepers being able to take shifting loads and movement. From what I’ve read in statments on various companies web sites, there are different load ratings. I’m sure the residents that are affected by the vibrations are hoping the sleepers will fail.
There are a few left out west on BNSF (old BN)…not well liked
(1) no adjustment in frog area
(2) no adjustment under switch points
(3) allignment problems behind frog on long ties (wishbone effect, gage)
(4) you can’t ship as a track panel
Mudchicken
All of those reasons are bummers.
This is going to sound dumb. But what exactly is a sleeper?
Later, Dru
gsetter, what railroad / country is that picture of the switch from? is it even standard gauge?
I was thinking down in subway line tunnels there might be concrete switches, they seem to use alot of track with no wooden ties.
The photo is of a South African contractor. I used what I could find quickly for illustration purposes. There are companies in the U.S. like Koppers that make pre-stressed concrete sleepers.
I don’t know what gage but it does look kind of narrow.
A sleeper is the Briti***erm for a railroad tie.
Not a dumb question. Here’s a link to the mda Railway Object Name Thesaurus
A sleeper is a wood, concrete or steel object which holds the rails to the correct track gauge and supports the track on the ballast.
A.K.A. tie
One big factor for not using concrete ties is COST! To custom make the ties needed for a turnout would be very expensive. Using wood ties is far more cost effective. That is the reason why we opted for wood at turnouts and concrete for the main lines.
*** Watkins PE, former board menber, DART
I beleive that most of the ROW for Metro-Link commuter trains here in L.A. are concrete sleepered and ALL of the light rail MetroRail tracks are concrete sleepers.
For those curios about the gauge in the picture South Africa uses a 3 foot 6 inch gauge.
Metro-North has been in the process of going to concrete sleepers on the Hudson Division for the last several years. Will look to see what they do with crossovers this summer. If anybody knows, I will be interested in advance.
Jerry
The Union Pacific here in Iowa uses concrete ties in their switches. All the new crossovers at control points seem to use concrete ties, even when the rest of the main line uses wooden ties in the same area.
Also, where concrete ties are used in the main track, switches to industry tracks have concrete ties. At a Arlington, Nebraska on the UP’s Blair subdivision, the concrete ties for the business track switch are there waiting to be installed if and when the Blair track project begins.
Jeff
The Union Pacific here in Iowa uses concrete ties in their switches. All the new crossovers at control points seem to use concrete ties, even when the rest of the main line uses wooden ties in the same area.
Also, where concrete ties are used in the main track, switches to industry tracks have concrete ties. At a Arlington, Nebraska on the UP’s Blair subdivision, the concrete ties for the business track switch are there waiting to be installed if and when the Blair track project begins.
Jeff
I must not drink so early in the morning, I’m starting to see double.
In the UK, we’re now moving towards hollow steel bearers (what we call sleepers (ties) in switches) it allows us to sta***he drive rods etc. out of the way of the ham fisted maintenance contractors.
I mentioned in gsetter’s other thread that the Toronto subway uses wooden ties under its switches even in tunnels. They have concrete ties on ballast in open sections, full concrete paving with the rails bolted to it in tunnels, fancy layers of concrete slabs and rubber, but when they have crossovers they change to wood ties and ballast even in the tunnels.
By the by, they are slowly converting the fastenings to Pandrol clips.
Ask the average american trackman about sleepers and fishplates - he’s gonna look at you like you’re from some other world or fresh out of the funny farm…
Ties, crossties,switch ties, joints and angle-bars spoken here. Miners use the term fishplate. North american trackmen savvy terms like crib, dapp, pandrol (pretzel clip), anchors and cut spikes…
Is that the same as “Ham fisted maintenance contractors” in the UK?