Wood ties vs. Concrete ties.

[BruceGKoprucki]

I noted on the Canadian Pacific Railway web site that they collect their scrap, non-reuseable ties for burning at some waste-to-energy plant. Yes, the ties at the home improvement stores can be pretty bad! The Queensland steel ties? I think they have a termite problem...or scarce wood supply.[:)]
Bruce Koprucki
Chaska, MN

[MichaelSol]

By SEAN GORMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: September 27, 2005)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is replacing defective railroad ties on Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line between Ossining and Tarrytown.

Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road bought 270,000 concrete ties in 1997 and 1998, but many are deteriorating prematurely even though the MTA hired a quality control company to oversee their production, according to report issued yesterday by state Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi.

About 100,000 of the 270,000 have been installed, said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly. Of those, about 16,000 are defective, he said.

"They pose no safety problems whatsoever," Kelly said. "It is a more rapid deterioration than what we believe should have happened, and for that reason we want to replace (them) ... It is not a safety concern to our customers or employees."

The ties were made by Rocla Concrete Tie, a Colorado-based company, Kelly said.

Rocla has agreed to provide replacement ties for the ones that are defective, he said. The MTA is speaking with that company and with Pennoni Associates — a Bridgeport, Pa.-based business that ensures the quality of the ties — about who will pay for the installation of the replacement ties, he said. The MTA does not believe it should have to pay for the work, Kelly said.

Neither officials of Pennoni or Rocla could immediately be reached for comment.

Metro-North, which had bought 206,000 of the questionable ties, plans to spend about $14 million to replace 52,000 of them. The railroad will periodically inspect the remaining 154,000, according to Hevesi's report.

Ties are the thick lengths of timber or concrete set crosswise into the bed of a railroad and to which the tracks are attached.

The concrete ties have a 25-year warranty that the railroads maintain covers both replacement and the much larger cost of the installation. But the manufacturer disputes the extent of the warranty, according to a news release from Hevesi's office.

Concrete ties are supposed to last much longer than the traditional wooden ones — 50 years as opposed to 30 years. Yet many of the new concrete ties are lasting only about seven or eight years, according to the comptroller's news release.

[MichaelSol]

From The Wall Street Journal Online
...
Other attempts to develop a widely used replacement for cheap wood cross ties haven't gone too far. Concrete ties, popular in Europe, are used on Amtrak's Boston-to-Washington Northeast Corridor and by freight railroads on new track in the western U.S. But concrete ties weigh 800 pounds each -- four times as much as a wood tie -- and require special installation equipment.

U.S. railroads' preference for wood over concrete comes down to economics. Wood ties cost about $35 each, including tie plates, spikes or screws; concrete ties cost about $45 to $55, excluding fasteners and pads, says Robert W. Blank, director of research and tests at Norfolk Southern. U.S. railroads already have the machinery to install wood ties, and hardwood is readily available in the eastern U.S. "Whatever material we use has to be economically justified, because Norfolk Southern alone will buy on the order of 2.5 million a year," Mr. Blank says.

Railroads in Europe put less stress on their tracks than in the U.S.: European railroads operate more passenger trains; whereas U.S. railroads operate heavier freight cars. And U.S. railroads also have more curved track. Manufacturers claim that concrete ties last 50 years, but Norfolk Southern says it found that concrete ties seemed to wear out sooner and require more maintenance than wood ties.

Some railroads are discovering that plastic outperforms wood. The historic St. Charles trolley line in New Orleans was outfitted in 1989 with ties made from a super-dense African wood; four years later the ties began to develop a fungus and crumble. "They break up like a piece of stale French bread," says Eddy Moore, director of maintenance at the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority. Plastic ties installed on the St. Charles line about three years ago "seem to be surviving," Mr. Moore says. The transit authority plans to install more plastic ties on the line.

Of the roughly 19 million railroad ties sold each year in North America, plastic ties have less than 1% of the market. More than 90% of the market is wood, but interest is growing in more-durable alternatives. With the economic rebound, there is more traffic on the rails, and operators are straining tracks by concentrating freight on fewer, denser routes. Replacing worn-out ties requires shutting down entire stretches of track.

Plastic and wood ties can be used interchangeably since they both weigh more than 200 pounds. Plastic-tie makers say their product can last for at least 50 years, but plastic ties usually cost at least twice as much as wood ties. "The economics don't favor the alternate materials," says Jim Gauntt, executive director of the Railway Tie Association, a Fayetteville, Ga., trade group representing wood-tie makers.

Plastic-tie companies insist their product is worth the premium price. "You can throw these ties into the swamps of Brazil, and they still perform," says Nathan Kalenich, senior applications engineer of U.S. Plastic Lumber Corp. The Chicago company has sold plastic ties to transit systems in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. It filed for bankruptcy-court protection in July because of problems it says are unrelated to its cross-tie operations.

Jim Kerstein, president of Polywood Inc., a plastic-tie maker in Edison, N.J., says new uses for discarded foam cups and other plastics relieves the pressure on overburdened U.S. landfills. Worn-out plastic ties can be recycled into new ties, while wooden ones often end up as landscaping timbers, parking-lot bumpers or garbage in a landfill.

North American Technologies Group Inc.'s TieTek unit, based in Houston, says each mile of track laid using its plastic ties consumes 8.9 million plastic bags and 10,800 scrapped tires, while saving 800 oak trees.

Last year, TieTek bought a 185,000-square-foot warehouse next to a Union Pacific line in Woodlawn, Texas, to help crank out the one million plastic ties the Omaha, Neb., railroad agreed to purchase over six years. So far, Union Pacific, the largest U.S. railroad, has bought more than 100,000 of TieTek's plastic ties. Machinery glitches and staffing problems delayed the plant's start-up, but TieTek expects to start producing about 20,000 ties a month, with room to boost output, in January.

TieTek's plastic-tie recipe consists of adding mica and other minerals to a stew of chopped-up milk jugs, grocery bags and tires. It took more than 100 tries to get the formula right: Ties made with 60% rubber were too flexible, but too much fiber made the ties so stiff that they snapped under pressure.

TieTek's Houston plant is making about 6,000 ties a month. The ingredients go through a mixer and emerge as a black, molten material, which is squeezed into 9-foot-by-9-inch-by-6-inch molds. The plastic ties are immersed in water, then put on a rack to cool. "In 12 hours, they're strong enough to hold a locomotive," says Henry W. Sullivan, TieTek's president.

Rafael Jimenez, an engineer at Transportation Technology Center Inc., a Pueblo, Colo., testing ground for railroad track and equipment, says accelerated wear-tests of plastic ties made by TieTek and U.S. Plastic Lumber showed the plastic ties to be "generally comparable" with creosote-treated hardwood ties. CSX Corp., a freight railroad with about 23,000 miles of track, found cracks in some of the TieTek ties it installed in Florida in 2002. "We understand TieTek improved the material since our 2002 order," a CSX spokesman says. "Our people still feel the plastic ties show promise."
...

Best regards, Michael Sol

[bartman-tn]

A bit more on concrete ties. When they came out, they were said to require less track maintenance since they were stiffer and held gage and profile better. The problem is that this is only true when (1) the subgrade and ballast are thick (16" plus), even and fully tamped. Any soft spot in the subgrade causes concrete ties to load unevenly which can easily lead to breakage. Also, (2) this is true when the trains operate all at approximately the same speed so that the correct superelevation can be installed in all curves. Superelevation raises the outer rail of the curves to reduce sideways forces. A mix of train speeds places sideways forces on the track. For example, slower trains ride the inside rail and faster trains ride the outside rail, both pushing outward. This sideways force can cause the rail to twist a bit allowing materials between the plate and the concrete tie. In areas where sand or dirt are present or blowing, this quickly creates a sandpaper-like affect in this area which weakens the tie in the area where the rail and fasteners contact the tie. This leads to accelerated deterioration and a very short concrete tie life, often less than wood ties when not corrected.

Bart Jennings

[Anonymous]

Don´t worry about replacing Concrete ties after a derailment etc..
Worry about replacing SWITCHES with concrete ties.
Dad a lot uf fun!!!
Herby from DA

[Anonymous]

Based on my experience at Norfolk Southern, there are very demanding environmental regulations governing the disposal of creosoted ties.

Concrete vs wood is a long standing argument and some railroads, notably NS, does not use concrete ties, though they have been tested. Of course, FEC, BNSF and UP have embared concrete for high density lines. There is no right answer, a lot depends of price and availablity of wood ties, maintenance strategies, etc.

Rather like the discussions about AC vs DC power.

[Anonymous]

Steel ties are becoming more & more popular in the US. Currently, all the Class One's use steel ties & more and more steel tie turnouts are being used. Steelties are light weight (easier on m.o.w. equipment & men), compact (more ties per railcar), require 40% less rock for same ballast support (huge $avings), simple assembly with fewer components mean up to 50% less new track construction time vs other materials, and they have the same track modulus as wood ties. Instead of worrying about disposal fees & various environomental issues if they should ever need replacing, they are 100% recyclable & can be sold for salvage value.

As has been indicated in a previous post, various manufacturers produce insulators & pads for isolating track circuits. Steelties are also offered in different sections for various track applications. Much like there are different rail sections for different track needs.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

What about wood composites?

Given the less than steller performance of some of the wood composite decking materials used in the housing industry,I'd be leery to roll a train over them. In the future,maybe,but right now I'm not sure wood composites are up to the required standards.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JDV5th

Old wooden ties- highly valuable for residential retaining walls, right?

[jeffhergert]

The UP has reduced speed on some curves in western Iowa where concrete ties have been installed. I was told why, but don't remember the exact reason. It had something with the flexing the wood can do, but the concrete can't.
Jeff

[PigFarmer1]

FWIW my MTM was saying the other day that UP is finding that our concrete ties are not holding up as well as was expected. Of course we wouldn't know since there are no concrete ties in our territory. I do know that they would be a mother to replace by hand. [:D]

[Anonymous]

What about wood composites?

[bartman-tn]

Since I teach railroad engineering and worked for the railroads, let me add a number of thoughts here.

Ties are basically made out of four materials: wood, steel, concrete and composites (generally plastic, rubber and fiberglass). Each basic type has its own physical characteristics, benefits and problems, and costs. Here go the basics:

Wood (generally pine, redwood, plus a few oaks and similar types such as cypress) have the advantage of ease of use, lower cost, and the fact that they are already used on most tracks. Aboput 3250 are used per mile on mainlines. Sizes vary from yard and siding ties of 6"x8"'x8' up to mainline ties of 7"x9"x9'. A few railroads use 10-foot ties around bridge ends and road crossings for additional stability. Switch ties go up to as much as 22 or 24 feet long. Wood takes pounding well because it allows the track to flex some, thus protecting the ballast and providing a more cushioned ride. Also, since timber flexs, the track structure and subgrade do not have to be as perfect since the tie holds the track together better even under such situations.

Steel and plastic have similar flexing characteristics as wood which is why they can be mixed with timber ties. Concrete can never be mixed, although a new concrete manufacturer claims to have a more flexing tie that can be mixed with timber.

There are some very stiff woods, such as azobe, which is very hard and has a life of almost unknown limits while regular wood lasts about 20 years in the wet south up to about 50 years in the dry west. Some woods such as oak work well in the south but are terrible in wet freeze-thaw zones such as in the northwest. Wood ties on mainlines often wear out due to pounding, or more often, gage widening in curves. Bolt and screw systems are being used more often in these areas to reduce this impact.

When replaced, many big railroads work with a contractor to take the entire lot. Who pays who depends upon the overall tie conditions. Many ties get reused on secondary or yard tracks or on industrial or shortline tracks. Decent ties can be used for landscaping or other similar uses. Junkers go to the dump or other disppsal sites.

Concrete ties have the major advanatage of long life, but only if taken care of properly. Concrete ties require a deeper and better maintained ballast and subgrade section because concrete cannot flex or twist as well as wood. Thus, uneven loading of the concrete tie can result in breakage. Look at concrete around mud holes and notice the chipping of the tie. The same problem happens where timber track and concrete track meet. Concrete ties are larger and need about 26-2800 ties per mile. They provide a much stiffer feel to the track. They also hold gage very well in curves due to the fastener systems used but have some problem in areas of blowing sand or coal dust as the material can get between the tie and the plate used to support the rail which causes corrosion and the "sanding" of the tie. This can result in the fasteners coming loose, often very quickly once begun. Old concrete ties often become bumper posts in parking lots or retaining walls.

Steel ties are used in a few places (BC Rail, IC/CN, etc.) because they hold track gage very well and can be recycled easily (heat them up and bend them back to shape in many cases). A big problem with steel ties is that they have to be insulated in signalized track, but there are plenty of systems to handle that. Also, steel ties do not pump mud and water since they have holes in the top that prevent a suction from being formed when pumping up and down.

Finally, composites, often called plastic ties, are getting to be very common. Their big advantage is that they can sit in wet track or water and not deteriorate as the other three types often do. The ties are made of a number of materials, but usually include recycled plastic, rubber tires, and fiberglass. They generally have a steel reinforcing core for added strength. Almost any kind of fastening system can be used and some AAR tests have shown that spikes can be driven and pulled out about 20 times with the tie loosing only about 10% of its spike holding power.

I hope that this helps a bit to answer a few of the issues about railroad ties.

Dr. Barton Jennings

[Anonymous]

concrete ties are also heavier than wood, this adds mass to the track structure making it more stable. as for the fence post comments most newer wooden ties, even on straight rail are in the 9 to 10 ft size. these are both busy subdivisions so I would doubt the ties were actually all that old, more likely they just got beaten down under the tieplates or cracked, either way, that messes with the line and crosslevel, leading to slow orders, broken rails, and sometimes derailments. concrete ties generaly don't have these problems (except as noted when there is a derailment). when mentioning the prestressing process, (depending on who made the ties), look on the ends of the tie and you'll just see the ends of the rebar.

[Anonymous]

Concrete ties indeed do make for a stiffer roadway, thus saving on fuel and wear (flexing) of the track. Thus they can be spaced slightly farther apart, saving a litle. I helped build the concrete tie plant in Denver, those were prestressed with 32-6mm wires. Under "normal" loads they do not go into tension. Tension will crack concrete at very low stress, so for durability you want them always in compression. The wires are tensioned and concrete placed in the forms. The concrete is steam cured to get strength by the nex morning, the prestressed wire are de-tensioned. At this point the friction between the wires holds the wires in tension, thus compressing the concrete. The crews then cut the wires, remove the completed tie whereit goes into the yard for storage. Our plant could make 1440 ties a day.

Back to track flexing, in the engineering world that is called pumping. On a RR it causes the fines from the soil below the ballast to work it's way up into the bassalt. When that happens you get a condition that caused the derailments in Powder River area. Then you rebuild the track secton, a barrier between the soil and ballast, ballast the ties and rail. At Powder River, the fines came from above, blowing coal dust. I haven't read anything about a planned fix for the problem.

[Anonymous]

The Class I's will often sell their old ties to Class II's and tourist railroads. I know the White Water Valley Railroad
http://www.whitewatervalleyrr.org/
buys used ties from CSX. Its much cheaper that new ties and since they can't run at high speed or have great tonnage they seem to work just fine.

[Anonymous]

Re-use of wooden ties:

Not desirable because they are not only treated with creosote but have collected a lot of weed killer chemicals over the years (20-30). Therefore they are good in landscaping at keeping the weeds and flowers down as Debby had already discovered. Also not desirable to be handled by unprotected humans.

If one burns stuff like creosote and weed killer at low temperatures you will get dioxin from incomplete combustion. Only fairly high temperatures like those present in power plants are able to crack everything down to basically carbon dioxide and water. The other matter like fluor and chlorine have to be filtered out from the gases and ashes.

In Germany there are only concrete or steel ties used nowadays for the reasons already mentioned. High speed lines even use continuous concrete beds to control movement of track to within 0.01". The rails are fastened to the ties with spring clamps or screws.
http://gleisbau-welt.de/grafix/bilder/gleisbau/feste_fahrbahn/feste_fahrbahn_atd.jpg

Longer page about the different kinds of rigid railbedding:
http://www.walter-heilit-vwb.de/engli***ransportation/railroad_o.htm

The steel ties are not what was used 40 years ago. The consist basically of two I-beams forming a V-section.

http://gleisbau-welt.de/grafix/bilder/material/schwellen/y_stahlschwelle.jpg

Example of new and old concrete ties:
http://www.tram-kassel.de/rtn/bau-ltb/20040901/lossebruecke_waldhof040901_02.jpg

Manfred

[eihndrsn]

Both Concrete and steel sleepers (ties) need insulation to prevent track circuits being shorted out. The greater mass of the concrete tie is a great advantage in providing a stable track under the dynamic forces from a modern high speed train with or without high axle loads. A comment was made about the appearence of concrete sleepers (ties). Very little of a concrete sleeper is seen once inserted in a finished track structure, modern track has the ballast extending well past the ends of the sleeper and placed up to the top of the sleeper so that the sleeper is well held and can transfer the forces from expansion of the continuously welded rail to the roadbed without the problem of heat kinks of old. Rail anchors against the face of the sleeper transfer braking forces to the sleeper and thus ballast to minimise rail creep.
Another comment suggested that concrete sleepers would be chipped in a derailment and have to be replaced and that wooden ones would survive. That is not so. Wooden sleepers only survive under empty wagons, the wheel of a loaded wagon acts like a pizza cutter when it derails so expect to rebuild the track after a loaded wagon derailment irrespective of type of sleeper (tie)..

[Anonymous]

In the UK, concrete sleepers (ties) have been used extensively since the 1940s (originally as a result of wartime timber shortages but later because of advantages of durability and greater weight to hold continuous welded rail in place. Most have been the monoblock type (i.e. one long concrete block with two rail fixings) but in recent years there have been trials with the type with two concrete blocks with a steel tie-rod between which is more usual in some countries in Continental Europe.
The Kent & East Sussex museum railway in England has used quite a lot of concrete sleepers for relaying out of sight of stations - many of them second-hand ones designed for use with rail chairs and bullhead rail (traditional British permanent way in the old days). These must be at least 40 or 50 years old and still in very adequate condition for our relatively low speeds - they were available cheaply as contractors lifting old tracks would otherwise have to have paid to dump them somewhere.
When the line was taken over for preservation there were some sections with steel sleepers - as I understand it these had been lifted from the disused Elham Valley line and used to rehabilitate the K&ESR as a possible diversionary route in World War 2. All now gone, I think - steel sleepers have an appreciable scrap value, unlike worn-out timber or concrete.
One problem of concrete sleepers for amateur track-laying is that they're heavier (250-300 lb) than wood. Two people can lift a wood sleeper but you need mechanical help for concrete!

[Anonymous]

I understand that the wood ties are reclaimed in various ways. The good ones may be used over by the railroad or go to the landscapers. these are classified onto diferent classes and prices. The ones that are unusable are loaded in gondolas and sent back east somewhare to a company that grinds them up, then boils the creasote out to reclaime it , and sends the chips back to California to be used in a cogenerating plant to make electricity.

RAW

[Anonymous]

I do not know what Class I's do with their used ties. On the old DRGW I saw that they used to cut them into stumps and spread them along the ROW.

Frequently, ties are burnded for their energy at cogeneration plants. You can also pay to have them buried (as a hazardous material in the state of CA).

I am interested in seeing more on the plastic/recycled ties. One of the Class I's is experimenting with installing 20,000 of them this year. I read the press release recently. But they added that there are limits to using plastic ties and that they are not preferred for turnouts (switch ties).

[PigFarmer1]

Steel ties are primarily used in yards. I suppose they could be used in non-controlled tracks in other than yards (Like a siding in track warrant country), but I haven't seen it.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 7304my

I wanted to add my 2 cents here on anything like RR ties, telephone poles, etc. My husband put some old creosote wood around my 60x 80 ft garden when we lived in North Dakota. Wherever the wood was laying, and within a foot in each direction away from it, it killed anything growing there. Whether vegetables or weeds, if they were unlucky enough to be growing near these areas, within a month all was dead, and the ground around them was also nasty looking. The heat from the summer sun made them smell like we had a RR track running thru my yard! (which that in itself would not be a bad idea. LOL! ) I will never use RR ties for vegetable or flower gardens!
But I do have a question, does anyone here think that these concrete reinforced ties will be the norm in the future in the US? Somehow, some of the ambiance of the RR tracks would be gone if even a Metra system (like Chicago Metra) would go with concrete ties. How well would it blend in? (or stick out and really be obvious)
Debbie (stuck in TX but rather be back in Chicago walking the Metra N/W line!)

It would be simple to put colorant in the wet concrete-like they do red sidewalks sometimes at a Taco Bell. All they'd have to do is,mix oily, black paint in the concrete, and they'd look similar to creosote ties. Of course,it wouldn't smell like creosote. The railroads would have to spray a big ol' can of *oder de railroad* air freshen on the ties.[;)]

[richardy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by james saunders

QUOTE: Originally posted by richardy

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hugh Jampton

QUOTE: Originally posted by richardy

QUOTE: Originally posted by james saunders

what bout steel the queensland rail system uses steel exstenvely for ties

Steel ties cannot be used in most of the US where train signal and grade crossing protection systems are present.

Why not? They're used in many other countries that have train signal and grade crossing protection systems.

Are they electric lines?

part of the line is electified if thats what you mean ? but only about half is electrified and most of the ties are concrete under the electrified area but once the electrification ends its moslty steel ties the steel ties are layed every 2 wood ties so its wood, wood,steel,wood,wood etc etc

If they are using steel in non-electric (the locomotive) signaled territory and the steel crossties are not insulated then they are not using track circuit detection for the signals. Are they using inductive pickup detection?

[Anonymous]

I wanted to add my 2 cents here on anything like RR ties, telephone poles, etc. My husband put some old creosote wood around my 60x 80 ft garden when we lived in North Dakota. Wherever the wood was laying, and within a foot in each direction away from it, it killed anything growing there. Whether vegetables or weeds, if they were unlucky enough to be growing near these areas, within a month all was dead, and the ground around them was also nasty looking. The heat from the summer sun made them smell like we had a RR track running thru my yard! (which that in itself would not be a bad idea. LOL! ) I will never use RR ties for vegetable or flower gardens!
But I do have a question, does anyone here think that these concrete reinforced ties will be the norm in the future in the US? Somehow, some of the ambiance of the RR tracks would be gone if even a Metra system (like Chicago Metra) would go with concrete ties. How well would it blend in? (or stick out and really be obvious)
Debbie (stuck in TX but rather be back in Chicago walking the Metra N/W line!)

[cefinkjr]

QUOTE: Originally posted by fado12c

When I was on a tie gang 25 years ago they were removed by cutting into three pieces by hydraulic shears and tossed to the side. They were pretty much unusable at that point.
RH

[#ditto]

That's my memory, too. Of course, the ties I remember replacing (on the NYC's Youngstown-Ashtabula Branch) were pretty much unusable before being cut into three pieces. I don't know what became of the pieces in that case. We left them in stacks about every 50 to 100 feet. I do recall burning ties at other locations but that was being frowned on even then.

Chuck

[james saunders]

QUOTE: Originally posted by richardy

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hugh Jampton

QUOTE: Originally posted by richardy

QUOTE: Originally posted by james saunders

what bout steel the queensland rail system uses steel exstenvely for ties

Steel ties cannot be used in most of the US where train signal and grade crossing protection systems are present.

Why not? They're used in many other countries that have train signal and grade crossing protection systems.

Are they electric lines?

part of the line is electified if thats what you mean ? but only about half is electrified and most of the ties are concrete under the electrified area but once the electrification ends its moslty steel ties the steel ties are layed every 2 wood ties so its wood, wood,steel,wood,wood etc etc

[Anonymous]

When I was on a tie gang 25 years ago they were removed by cutting into three pieces by hydraulic shears and tossed to the side. They were pretty much unusable at that point. There is an outfit near Baltimore that mulchs any kind of junk wood including ties and utility poles. About every three years they have a fire that lasts for days. Makes a nice dark mulch but I can't imagine you would want it in your yard.

RH

[coldguy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wncrails

Tie Tek produces a "recycled" tie that serves as alternative to wood and is cheaper than concrete ties. The company has been around a few years. They make the ties from post consumer recycleables such as milk jugs and tires.

http://www.natk.com/ttprod.html

There main customer is UP, but they recently got an order from BNSF. Looks like this might actually take off! There are some photos under the "investers" link...

I don't know if they're the same thing, but i saw alot of black, plactic-like, recycled-materials ties this summer@McAllester Army Ammunition Plant. The mow people I talked to called them "rubber" ties, but they also call spring-switches"rubber", and they are rednecks. I was told that due to EPA regulations, they can no longer use creosote treated wooden ties, and non-treated ties are only rated to last 5 years, but the "rubbers" are rated for 30 years. All the ties they replace are swapped with "rubbers", except on curves and other stressed areas where every 3rd or 4th tie is steel. I don't know if the EPA regs are nation-wide, or only applicable here because it's a government facility, but it may be the wave of the future. Also, they try to re-use any decent wooden ties they remove.

BTW-related, sort of, in a gov agency early adopting EPA regs sort of way, but I just heard that EMD and the DOD are in a joint project to rebuild a former Army GP9 into a fuel cell locomotive. "Big Pink" , so called due to its oxidized Trans Corp red paint job, was rusting to the rails on Jones Island here in Milwaukee a half mile from 757th TC Bn HQ until about a year ago. I heard from somone in the loop that it was being stripped down to the deck and the prime-mover and generator replaced with a fuel cell. I will be following this development as I can't wait to get my turn at the throttle of an Army "stealth" locomotive.