Concrete or plastic on wetter areas or the sections that are harder to set, repair or replace like turns, junctions, and switches. Use wood on sections that you can replace quickly like straight sections.. Expand concrete and plastic areas when feasible.
As someone who works on a small tram museum in the American mid Atlantic I can confirm that ballast in no way stops vegetation from growing on the track. Stuff just grows right up through it and we end up just spraying weed killer along the RoW
Plastic sleepers seems like like a perfect fit for such a wet climate, and your most likely helping keep some Plastic at least out of landfills and oceans.
Volunteer at a few railways up in the north east of Scotland. One particular narrow gauge (2ft) has started using plastic. Reasons go like this Wood - usually lasts about 10-15 years, rots more in wetter weather Concrete - can last 25-35 years, can be expensive and heavy to move. Plastic - it's very new and still under test, believed to last about 50-75 years (meaning one change will last a lifetime), can be on the expensive side but the money to time balances out.
My wife and I conserve a small patch of temperate rainforest in England. Although rising rainfall should mean that there will be more rainforest in future, our bit goes back to the ice ages, so we're trying to maintain a reservoir of flora and fauna already adapted to it!
I volunteer at a commercial narrow gauge railway and they are switching to recycled plastic ties/sleepers and that the way you should go if you can afford to.
That temporate rainforest map is very generous. Parts of New Zealand are like Ireland, wet (coolish) on the west and much drier on the east. In terms of the sleepers I think the recycled plastic is your best bet. They should be easier to work with than the concrete, less brittle, and since they're not under lots of mechanical wear they should last a long time.
As someone who lives in a temperate zone in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, which makes it an area that often flirts with becoming a desert, interspaced with monsoon-ish rains, I’m always fascinated by places that rain and plant growth are nearly a plague, they come so easy!
The membrane (geo textile) would keep your ballast from sinking into the mud over time. Keeping weeds down requires constant spraying even our a semi arid climate. Ballast would be a good investment over time and not only helps preserve your sleepers it keeps the track from settling as well as keeping in aligned. I don’t think a ballasted track would be a hazard, on the contrary , 2” high rails buried in the vegetation present a trip hazard. Wood sleepers have too short a lifespan, you don’t want to have to rebuild a non profit railroad every 4-5 years. My feeling is plastic is the way to go because you would have a lot less labor invested. Creosoted wood sleepers are treated under high pressure.
Dear inventor Tim 👍👌👏 2) I guess that in Germany alone ten thousands of old windows are thrown away each year. A lot of the frames are made of relatively rot resistant exotic wood (red meranti for instance). Usually one can get old windows for free. Maybe you know some carpenters, recycling or dump sites who will allow you to "harvest" wood for sleepers. I have to admit, that doing something like this is a lot of effort. 3) Therefore I vote for concrete sleepers. You can easily make a mold for let's say ten sleepers and pour concrete almost every day. By using recycling gravel and sand, it should be way cheaper than with fresh/new material. But of course you will still need fibre material to add to the concrete mix (using rebar is too expensive and too much effort). Thanks a lot for making explaining recording editing uploading and sharing. Best regards, luck and especially health to all of you.
Volunteer at a few railways up in the north east of Scotland. One particular narrow gauge (2ft) has started using plastic. Reasons go like this Wood - usually lasts about 10-15 years, rots more in wetter weather Concrete - can last 25-35 years, can be expensive and heavy to move. Plastic - it's very new and still under test, believed to last about 50-75 years (meaning one change will last a lifetime), can be on the expensive side but the money to time balances out.
What may interest you are things we have in South Australia - Stobie Poles. These are electricity poles that are made out of steel and concrete instead of the traditional wooden power poles as we have very little quality wood. They prove to be very strong and it would be excellent if you could incorporate the design into your railway sleepers.
I like the idea that others are echoing to use the plastic/concrete sleepers at junctions and switches which would be very difficult to replace and to use the wood on the straightaways. Given how long the wood for the existing railroad has worked I would bet that some new wooden sections could do quite a bit of work for you before they would have to be replaced meaning that they can at least help pay for their "upgrades/upkeep". Great stuff as always I patiently await future updates, Best of Luck!!!
I think you should use whatever you have at the moment, plus whatever better alternatives available when you have money to spend, and work up a schedule for upgrading when possible.
Love wood but go for plastic. Better still, frequent use of a new steam contraption to run the line and provide fun and enjoyment for everyone. On the epiphytes; most of my students 50 years ago dismissed them until visiting and saw them in my woodland. I have a huge and varied fernery started in Victorian days from old stumps. Best wishes from New Forest. Thank you for posting.
The question is: where do you fall on the trade off between getting finished now, so that you have the tool you need to make some money, knowing that the whole project will cost more in the long run when you replace the wooden sleepers, vs. wait awhile so you can accumulate the funds to install a more permanent solution, where you don't have to come back and fix it. Of course keeping in mind the old adage: "It's only temporary. Unless it works."
Pressure treated wood sleepers should be easiest to bang out the ginormous amount of rail track you need to lay out there. But I think a more permanent solution in the form of concrete sleepers and plastic sleepers to replace the wooden ones over a long period of time might be better. Since it takes time, you can keep a stockpile of recycled plastic sleepers and maybe a few concrete ones as you need them. Wood is always a cheap and fast solution but like you said it wont last long.
You could cast smaller concrete sleepers on sight by digging a hole in the ground and just filling the hole? You could even set the pipe fitting pieces into it and lay the track on it so it sets in place with the tracks ready to go. Maybe use one piece of rebar to tie it all together with a hole on the bottom of the pipefitting and a metal tie through it and holding the rebar or some other form to hold it together as you cast the concrete. If you can cast and move the concrete on site this would be the best option in my opinion (some strange young guy on the internet). If not maybe go concrete in the direct sunlight areas and plastic where it has less heat and wood where it is both dry and easy to replace if you need to. The real question, in the years you have had the other track how much of it have you had to replace? Anyways I love the project. And I wish you the best of luck!
Have you tried the Japanese burnt timber method? They use it to maintain wooden temples for centuries. The name for this varies by the type of timber used, e.g. for cypress wood they call it shou sugi ban.
I would prefer plastic or concrete sleepers. They would save you a lot of maintenance. However costs are higher. Keep up the good work👍. In Denmark we see furns growing on very old oaktrees where water is collected in Y shaped big big branches.
I grew up in one of those little green areas and used to see ferns growing on the trees all the time- now I know what that's called! I remember having issues with things like wooden raised beds or retaining walls made out of old railroad ties. It's true that things rotted away quickly; it also appeared to be true that things seemed to stay in place for years after whatever wooden structure was holding it became thoroughly rotten. I'm guessing you would get a good many years of useful service out of your railway if you do opt for wood.
The west coast of British Columbia is in a temperate rain forest and ferns are quite prolific. East of the coast range (less than 300 km from the coast), the climate is near desert due to the rain shadow effect.
You have the opportunity to design and make a very cool strimmer set up, mounted on a snowplow to keep the vegetation on the rails well in check! :) I would personally go plastic for sleepers
Although the plactic ties should last the longest, they take a long time to make them. I would go with the concrete. Its not to hard to set up multiple forms to cast several at a time.
I think you're going to end up with mix of sleepers. The "expensive" plastic ones in the wettest areas, going to wood in the areas with the best drainage. I bloody love your channel 🙂 When' the next Calendar out?!
If you use lumber for the sleepers, you might be able to use either something such as aromatic cedar or (not sure if they exist in Ireland) Osage orange (are they trees or bushes?) plants, AKA hedge apple. These are two wood options that resist rot quite well. Though the one problem with the hedge apple idea is whilst it resists rot and it REALLY tough, it'll probably be fairly expensive if you can get it at all.
I treat any untreated wood I use at or below grade (such as fence posts) by charring the outside- a simple enough task with a big propane torch. There's probably sciencey data on the effectiveness of this, but from personal experience, it extends the life of spruce and pine by at least 10 years. Just something for you to keep in mind for future projects.
I use treated fence rails, that are approx 3" x 2" on my line at home and my commercial line. My supplier cuts them to my required length and you can see that the preservative doesn't penetrate very far, so I stand them in a creosote bath for 48 hours, turning them after 24 hours. Real creosote is very effective and can still be purchased for agricultural use. The secret is to ensure the wood is dry and that the creosote gets plenty of time to be absorbed by the grain. I've made over 10,000 sleepers this way and the oldest are still fine after 11 years in the ground. They need to be in cleanish ballast on a membrane, and ths tops must be clear so that they can breath.
I was waiting for pros and cons on the other types! Others have said, I think a mix is probably wise, wood where you can replace easily like straights, and plastic or concrete in the more complex areas, curves and points. I presume concrete is the most expensive of the 3
Morning Tim. After some thought I think wooden sleepers are the best choice for now. Plastic might be best overall for your concerns, but concrete is overkill. Concrete is only as good as the mix, reenforcement bars and skill of the person making them. You could use mostly wood and sprinkle some concrete and plastic ones in to test. Without proper ballast and grade your choices are limited. Thinking outside the box, would a shallow canal work? You could pull the little barges with a variety of animals you already have and materials are needed only for the barges. That, of course is off course in your plans, I know. Cheers all. 🇨🇦
When the first railways started, they used almost anything to use as ties. In your case, if you have anything that you can use to make a railroad tie, use it. You can always get the recycled plastic tie later.
Wood where it's easy to replace, plastic where it isn't. Also, maybe consider making a tool for scraping off the mats of vegetation that want to grow wherever you leave bare ground. Either transplant it somewhere else, or just chuck it into a compost heap for more organic matter for your fields.
I'm voting for concrete. I have little money, so I make my own pavers from Redimix using milk jug bottoms as forms. you could do this with a rebar connection between pavers. The spacing and holes in the pavers could be easily achieved with a simple wooden template form that could be used repeatedly. I have also incorporated an old vibrator from a Lazy boy recliner to release the air from my poured pavers in the drying process. you would use far less concrete than a full length 'sleeper", as you call them, and they would be lighter and easier to install.
I would personally use concrete sleepers as they are quick and cheap to make, and last a lifetime under the conditions that the railway will be used in.
I made some modular concrete planters, small concrete panels connected with iron rods thru the ends. They didn't work very well, but I got some experience making concrete molds. I suggest making some concrete molds with a trapezoidal cross section, they will pop out of the molds easy. Make the molds in sets (they can be built as a single unit) of however many sleepers you can get out of a sack of concrete mix. A day or two for the concrete to set in the mold, then pop them out gently to finish curing and reuse the molds. How many sets of molds depends on you daily production goals. Use heavy wire to reinforce the concrete. PVC pipe sections for spike holes. OOPS! Do Not Forget to grease the molds! 500 concrete sleepers? I'm glad it's your back not mine. Jim Y
What about an alternative wood treatment like charring/burning the outside layer like they use in Japan to prevent rot? Might be able to use your charcoal oven to do large batches all at one time.
Decisions, decisions, my suggestion would be to get some old railroad ties (sleepers) put them on the ground running parallel to your steel rails then lay your rail line on top of the the old ties. My choice for new sleepers would be the plastic ones.
you could char the wooden sleepers (if they're hard wood) to make them last longer and make them somewhat waterproof. as far as i know, you can re-char the wood a fes times, if the outer layer is worn or damaged...
I have seen people vacuum impregnating wood where you put it submerged in for instance linseed oil and suck the air out. When released back in the wood will be filled with oil instead. I don't know the longevity or cost of it though. Second: This is the boring "don't poison the environment" person commenting. Just because life seems to grow doesn't mean it is harmless to people. Things grow in lead poisoned dirt and salt water too and there are species that thrive in diesel tanks.
Maybe you could separate the sleeper functions of setting the rail position, gauge and supporting the wagon weight. Rebar could be bent into a "staple" with the pipes welded to it and driven into the ground. Supports of bricks, concrete pavers, wood, plastic or any thing else handy can be placed under the rails to support the weight. Or the ends of the staples could be placed in small holes which are then filled with concrete.
@@RFDarter concrete is only strong if its well bedded, for example if you lay concrete slabs without a level base of sand (or if the bed is eroded out from under them) they will quickly crack just from people walking over them.
I've seen some railroads that used metal ties. I think they had a cross section that was sort of open at the bottom, with little flanges to keep them from sinking into the soil, and perhaps they were prestressed to keep them from bending under load. I'm curious about the concrete ties. Would you cast them? With rebar and prestressed? And the holes in the casting? I don't know how heavy the loads you use are so maybe prestressed isn't required. If you used plastic could you have a wide piece at the bottom to make them more stable on whatever they rest on? Thanks for sharing. Fascinating.
I'd start with wood and replace with more durable sleepers when/if they start to rot. I have some raised flower beds made of commercial treated lumber, some rotted away in a couple years, others are still solid after 15+ years
Recycled plastic. And I recall you rather liked them when you used them before. But it is your (and Sandra's) farm. You will know what is best for you. ☮
Concrete sleepers used on the big railway have steel tendons inside that are stretched before the concrete is poured and only released after it has set, the tendons keep the concrete in a stat of compression where it is strongest.
Maybe you can reach out to some pladtic recycling company to sponsor your sleepers? With all the long lived, work load and environmental issues of wood and concrete considered, i would recommend the plastic ones. After all, they are too, made of trees! Well, some hundreds thousand years old, petrified, pumped out of the ground and chemical reworked. 😅
Assuming it’s not too expensive, based on the conditions, the plastic ties are the best option assuming their mechanical properties are similar to wood. I know on standard gauge operations they’ve been used successfully. Wood is going to be the second best option. Lasts long enough, cheapest and easiest to replace. Concrete should really only be used for well maintained ballasted road beds. This is because when one concrete tie fails the adjacent ties do not handle the extra strain well and will fail prematurely creating a domino effect of failure. Wood and plastic are not affected in this way. Not to mention the freeze thaw cycle I assume you experience. A proper road bed will prevent weed growth, but as you explained it’s an expensive endeavor.
People who don't live in our climate don't get just how *wet* everything gets. I am in Scotland and for most of the year, everything is soaking. Concrete sleepers would probably be more environmentally friendly in the long run. Plastic one are more resistant. I don't know about the microplastic situation but at least you would be recycling plastic that ends up in landfill or some poor sod's field in another country. Wood, while being cheaper and easier does not last. May I suggest, wood for areas that are easier to maintain and plastic or concrete for harder to maintain areas (or if you have enough for larger sections) . Replace the wooden ones with concrete / plastic as you can afford and need to replace the wooden ones.
Maybe now that you need so many sleepers it is profitable to make your own recycled plastic sleeper post. You just need something to melt them down and a press that will pull the melted plastic through a square tube to shape it. If you can get some old plastic from greenhouses or something like that, it might work out well.
Answer to your question is so obvious. Many many railway companies around the world tried everything for decades to develop the best solution for sleepers. And the answerr is... concrete. If concrete is a good grade and made well in controled manner, it will last for decades without major repairs. I know that you are interested in price also, but all that railways companies were too. And they still choose concrete sleeepers. And I don't even mention the they are pretensioned concrete. Also the railway understructure is from crushed stones for a good reasons. Mainly it very well distributes load from rails and sleepers to the topsoil and also somehow prevented grass to grow between sleepers. In your case, topsoil seems to be soggy mud. But still an interesting garden project. Good luck.
You aren't really comparing apples to apples though. If I want to buy a cheap doodad from china, it will probably be injection moulded plastic. Thats isn't the cheapest solution for small scale production though. Plus theres different scales. a commercial railway has to deal with higher speeds and much more weight.
I think recycled plastic sleepers would be the best option because they won't rot and won't release any toxins into the soil and would be cheaper and easier to make than concrete sleepers.
Tim, I'm from a temperate rainforest in the eastern US and we have the same ferms growing in mosses in our trees. We would need to look at the spores to be sure. I think you might have an invasive species! I doubt it will have any significant impact to your ecosystem.
Some old tracks out in western Queensland are over 130 years old, most lines stopped operating years ago, some are still used for tourist trains and some sections still have many original timber sleepers. Plastic would not fair so well in those hot dry conditions.
You do what the main railways do, weed killing trains, basically spray acetic acid. But a proper ballast job would raise the track about the ground moisture, it's why railways do it along with stability. Treated timber is okay but not very long lasting. Concrete is not ideally suited to being in wet mushy ground, they will sink in & if you get a cold snap which freezes the ground, the concrete will break up from frost jacking. The best cost effective material is the recycled plastic, expensive outlay but much longer lasting.
BT use pressure treated creosoted poles for their network, they're estimated to have a 20 year working life with regular retreatments, and there's only about 4FT actually in the ground. Regardless of what you opt for, you should consider using plastic sheeting under them to stop the weeds growing back through and choking your rails.
Genuine railway sleepers were pressure treated with creosote to quite some depth, 2' to 3' inches, they lasted decades, not like the joke stuff you buy from the garden centre today where it’s shown the pressure tank door and that’s all you get. I'd use plastic sleepers mostly because it's using up waste plastics.
Have you considered thinking a bit more outside the box? do you even need sleepers? it seems to me a rail made from angle section stock, or some kind of ladder arrangement with spikes attached to go into the ground could work. If you need more stability you can always set it in concrete. Just relying on spikes would make grading easier. you could have such a system a foot off the ground if need be, it would be more like a roller coaster!. It would need less concrete than concrete sleepers, the spikes are the only thing in contact with the ground you aren't dealing with massive loads, so theres no particular need to make it like a traditional railway.
The greatest danger for concrete is frost in combination with water. As there is not much frost in Ireland, concrete is probably the cheapest and most environmentally friendly solution.
I’d recommend being careful with the grass on the rails. If it remains wet, it can decompose into pectin due to repeated pressing from the wheels, which is a quite effective high pressure lubricant! It would make braking largely impossible if you are caught unaware.
How about, 2 concrete feet, flower pot sized, spaced with a piece of rebar cast in. Yes the rebar will eventually rust, but so will the rails. One thick bar may be cheaper, and definitely lighter, than concrete. The spacing will be locked in, and the concrete would have needed some reinforcing anyway. although much less metal. You could even replace the rebar with some of your galvanized pipe. While resisting corrosion, you may have to deform the ends to lock them into the concrete.
When it comes to your groundwork, rather than landscape fabric, have you considered using cardboard as a barrier material? My sister and I have been trying that as barrier material with rocky areas for landscaping, her underneath a gravel pathway, me for a ring around a tree covered with river rocks. So far it has held up well for both of us, though mine was only set up earlier this year and hers has been in place for about two years now. From what I've seen on it, it's effective for blocking light to prevent growth, biodegradable without leaving behind plastics or creating a mesh since it's a paper product, and will still allow drainage as it gets wet since the paper is porous. Best of all, it's cheap, often free. I imagine you could probably use that under the railway regardless of what sleepers you're using and whether you're using ballast or not, since the weight of the rails should hold it down. At least a bit of ballast would probably still be a good idea for rails that will remain in the same spot for a long time as it will help distribute the weight as rolling stock goes over and keep the rails from sliding around, but with a barrier material you could get by with just a thin layer rather than needing to build up a bank.
It( the decision) all comes down to cost/benefit of the materials you are considering using. As most of the commenters have posited, each has benefits and what your needs and wants are. I don't know your budget or how much time you are willing to use for maintenance which will increase with additional track. You need to keep that in consideration as well.
Here in Germany, the weeds on the railway tracks are fought with poison. Any hobbyist gardener knows how quickly weeds can sprout. At the many railway stations in Germany, the recovery is particularly high. The railway is now opening a new course. The German Railways wants to use less Glyphosate. Last year, another 57 tons of the controversial weed killer were sprayed along the glacier. Next year it should be half as much, said a company spokesman for the German press agency. Instead, weeds are vigorously manually controlled to keep the rails free. "On far parts of the stretch network, no glyphosate will be released from 2020," the railway announced. Until 90 percent of the network is treated with glyphosate once a year, around 63,000 ice kilometers. Except for its nature reserves and bridges. Die Bahn is by its own account the largest single user of glyphosate in Germany, albeit with only 0.4 percent of the total. Also farmers and gardeners put the means one.
The best wood would be a wood that does not rot. I’m lucky to live right near the california redwoods which are lovely trees that rot very slowly. I have timber pieces that have sat in the yard for years and are good as new except for some dirt on them. These would be perfect for you, but I imagine very expensive if you could even get any.
Being from NZ kinda assumed that most places had epiphytes, but that map shows we are pretty unique (and as other commenter has said not all of NZ has them, our east coast is much drier and doesn't get them as often / at all in certian places.
🤔 Raised monorail with gyro balancing?... Overengineered?😂 How is the plastic sleepers you installed last year holding up? Micro plastic is a thing in agriculture especially ecological production. Would be a bummer if you polluted your fields inadvertently. Concrete with a silicone paint/sealant on? Can you get old tyres for free? One strip under and one strip over a wood sleeper? Strips from old glasfiber boats? A few brainstormed suggestions to get your brain cogs turning Tim. Your ingenuity beats mine by a couple of magnitudes so I trust you will find a good solution. Anyway, a comment for the AI to chew on. Take care👋
Between the "cost and availability" and the inevitably low ecological impact of wood, I'm leaning in that direction. Plastic has a high availability, but in less suitable forms, requiring further processing to be viable. Similar with concrete, requiring huge ecological processing costs before it is a viable material. Both plastic and concrete will be around a lot longer than your rails. I can't say if the plastic or the wood would be the better steward for the planet, in the long run: wood because it requires leaves less effect, or plastic because of its current abundance in undesirable forms), but those are my thoughts on that.
Can you come up with a video showing the pros and cons of plastic and concrete sleepers. Even without a video I would suggest plastic especially if you can make them yourself.
Better to go with the plastic or concrete sleepers they might be more expensive now but it will save time and money in the long run because you won't have to replace them
Perhaps the wooden sleepers at first, if nothing less to lower your initial costs. You seem to have sections you can replace with recycled plastic already, so (much to some grumbling from your future self) you could make it a bigger project to replace more sleepers in the future when the funds allow it for more plastic sleepers
Unless you can use something like bois d'arc, your sleepers will rot away too quickly. Fenceposts made of it are typically the last things standing, even a century after the rest of the fence fell away.
I think you may be better off with the plastic sleepers, and perhaps use any untreated scrap wood to farm mushrooms (unless you just don't want to farm mushrooms, in which case I'm sure there are other things you can do with the wood).
Hi Tim, I would say that you should go with concrete sleepers, they might be more expensive but you likely won't have to replace them very often and they are the most environmentally friendly. As you pointed out treated wooden sleepers aren't great as they eventually release all that nasty stuff into the soil, and while plastic sleepers might be cheap they also have the same problem with microplastics leaching out into the soil, this will happen regardless of quality, and while they might not affect you or your animals or crops right now it'll be a problem for whoever owns the land down the line. So in conclusion, concrete sleepers will save you time and effort in the future, and you won't have to worry about them poisoning your soil. Plus it'll just turn back to gravel and sand in a few hundred years.
I'm gonna be real, the microplastics issue is next to irrelevant surely. It takes thousands of year to degrade plastic in landfill. It MAY depending on the plastics leech incredibly small amounts of things like phylates but as I understand it that's as much as it does. and microplastics have never been found to pass from say soil to root to vegetable,
I’d go with creosote treated wood - get it done and working. How many years do you realistically need the sleepers to last? The railway doesn’t get that much load and wouldn’t be a daily thing.
Is there any benefit to charring the outer layer of the timber sleepers? I don't know if it's practical but it would be inexpensive if a bit time consuming, provided it worked.
Concrete or plastic on wetter areas or the sections that are harder to set, repair or replace like turns, junctions, and switches. Use wood on sections that you can replace quickly like straight sections.. Expand concrete and plastic areas when feasible.
As someone who works on a small tram museum in the American mid Atlantic I can confirm that ballast in no way stops vegetation from growing on the track. Stuff just grows right up through it and we end up just spraying weed killer along the RoW
Plastic sleepers seems like like a perfect fit for such a wet climate, and your most likely helping keep some Plastic at least out of landfills and oceans.
Volunteer at a few railways up in the north east of Scotland. One particular narrow gauge (2ft) has started using plastic.
Reasons go like this
Wood - usually lasts about 10-15 years, rots more in wetter weather
Concrete - can last 25-35 years, can be expensive and heavy to move.
Plastic - it's very new and still under test, believed to last about 50-75 years (meaning one change will last a lifetime), can be on the expensive side but the money to time balances out.
My wife and I conserve a small patch of temperate rainforest in England. Although rising rainfall should mean that there will be more rainforest in future, our bit goes back to the ice ages, so we're trying to maintain a reservoir of flora and fauna already adapted to it!
That's wonderful, I didn't realise there was any left!
@cooperised little pockets, here and there!
I volunteer at a commercial narrow gauge railway and they are switching to recycled plastic ties/sleepers and that the way you should go if you can afford to.
Plus, plastic is not as environmentally horrid as concrete AND you'll have to mix it up and make a form for it. It's going to be plastic
That temporate rainforest map is very generous. Parts of New Zealand are like Ireland, wet (coolish) on the west and much drier on the east.
In terms of the sleepers I think the recycled plastic is your best bet. They should be easier to work with than the concrete, less brittle, and since they're not under lots of mechanical wear they should last a long time.
It’s time to make a mower attachment for your train Tim 😁
I was thinking the same, maybe strap a couple of weed whackers to the front of a cart
Tim Train Track Trimmer
As someone who lives in a temperate zone in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, which makes it an area that often flirts with becoming a desert, interspaced with monsoon-ish rains, I’m always fascinated by places that rain and plant growth are nearly a plague, they come so easy!
Being a recycling man myself I vote for recycle plastic and I would make an injection molding machine. Free plastic is everywhere.
Excellent presentation of temperate rain forests.
The membrane (geo textile) would keep your ballast from sinking into the mud over time. Keeping weeds down requires constant spraying even our a semi arid climate.
Ballast would be a good investment over time and not only helps preserve your sleepers it keeps the track from settling as well as keeping in aligned.
I don’t think a ballasted track would be a hazard, on the contrary , 2” high rails buried in the vegetation present a trip hazard.
Wood sleepers have too short a lifespan, you don’t want to have to rebuild a non profit railroad every 4-5 years.
My feeling is plastic is the way to go because you would have a lot less labor invested.
Creosoted wood sleepers are treated under high pressure.
Dear inventor Tim
👍👌👏 2) I guess that in Germany alone ten thousands of old windows are thrown away each year. A lot of the frames are made of relatively rot resistant exotic wood (red meranti for instance). Usually one can get old windows for free. Maybe you know some carpenters, recycling or dump sites who will allow you to "harvest" wood for sleepers. I have to admit, that doing something like this is a lot of effort. 3) Therefore I vote for concrete sleepers. You can easily make a mold for let's say ten sleepers and pour concrete almost every day. By using recycling gravel and sand, it should be way cheaper than with fresh/new material. But of course you will still need fibre material to add to the concrete mix (using rebar is too expensive and too much effort).
Thanks a lot for making explaining recording editing uploading and sharing.
Best regards, luck and especially health to all of you.
I wish we had more pros and cons of both the plastic and the concrete sleepers.
Volunteer at a few railways up in the north east of Scotland. One particular narrow gauge (2ft) has started using plastic.
Reasons go like this
Wood - usually lasts about 10-15 years, rots more in wetter weather
Concrete - can last 25-35 years, can be expensive and heavy to move.
Plastic - it's very new and still under test, believed to last about 50-75 years (meaning one change will last a lifetime), can be on the expensive side but the money to time balances out.
What may interest you are things we have in South Australia - Stobie Poles. These are electricity poles that are made out of steel and concrete instead of the traditional wooden power poles as we have very little quality wood. They prove to be very strong and it would be excellent if you could incorporate the design into your railway sleepers.
More railway videos, please!!!!!
I like the idea that others are echoing to use the plastic/concrete sleepers at junctions and switches which would be very difficult to replace and to use the wood on the straightaways. Given how long the wood for the existing railroad has worked I would bet that some new wooden sections could do quite a bit of work for you before they would have to be replaced meaning that they can at least help pay for their "upgrades/upkeep". Great stuff as always I patiently await future updates, Best of Luck!!!
I think you should use whatever you have at the moment, plus whatever better alternatives available when you have money to spend, and work up a schedule for upgrading when possible.
Love wood but go for plastic. Better still, frequent use of a new steam contraption to run the line and provide fun and enjoyment for everyone. On the epiphytes; most of my students 50 years ago dismissed them until visiting and saw them in my woodland. I have a huge and varied fernery started in Victorian days from old stumps. Best wishes from New Forest. Thank you for posting.
The question is: where do you fall on the trade off between getting finished now, so that you have the tool you need to make some money, knowing that the whole project will cost more in the long run when you replace the wooden sleepers, vs. wait awhile so you can accumulate the funds to install a more permanent solution, where you don't have to come back and fix it.
Of course keeping in mind the old adage: "It's only temporary. Unless it works."
Pressure treated wood sleepers should be easiest to bang out the ginormous amount of rail track you need to lay out there. But I think a more permanent solution in the form of concrete sleepers and plastic sleepers to replace the wooden ones over a long period of time might be better. Since it takes time, you can keep a stockpile of recycled plastic sleepers and maybe a few concrete ones as you need them. Wood is always a cheap and fast solution but like you said it wont last long.
You could cast smaller concrete sleepers on sight by digging a hole in the ground and just filling the hole? You could even set the pipe fitting pieces into it and lay the track on it so it sets in place with the tracks ready to go. Maybe use one piece of rebar to tie it all together with a hole on the bottom of the pipefitting and a metal tie through it and holding the rebar or some other form to hold it together as you cast the concrete. If you can cast and move the concrete on site this would be the best option in my opinion (some strange young guy on the internet). If not maybe go concrete in the direct sunlight areas and plastic where it has less heat and wood where it is both dry and easy to replace if you need to. The real question, in the years you have had the other track how much of it have you had to replace? Anyways I love the project. And I wish you the best of luck!
Have you tried the Japanese burnt timber method? They use it to maintain wooden temples for centuries. The name for this varies by the type of timber used, e.g. for cypress wood they call it shou sugi ban.
I would prefer plastic or concrete sleepers. They would save you a lot of maintenance.
However costs are higher.
Keep up the good work👍.
In Denmark we see furns growing on very old oaktrees where water is collected in Y shaped big big branches.
I grew up in one of those little green areas and used to see ferns growing on the trees all the time- now I know what that's called! I remember having issues with things like wooden raised beds or retaining walls made out of old railroad ties. It's true that things rotted away quickly; it also appeared to be true that things seemed to stay in place for years after whatever wooden structure was holding it became thoroughly rotten. I'm guessing you would get a good many years of useful service out of your railway if you do opt for wood.
The west coast of British Columbia is in a temperate rain forest and ferns are quite prolific. East of the coast range (less than 300 km from the coast), the climate is near desert due to the rain shadow effect.
You have the opportunity to design and make a very cool strimmer set up, mounted on a snowplow to keep the vegetation on the rails well in check! :)
I would personally go plastic for sleepers
Although the plactic ties should last the longest, they take a long time to make them.
I would go with the concrete. Its not to hard to set up multiple forms to cast several at a time.
And you can cast the pieces into them removing a bit of setup of hammering them in place
I think you're going to end up with mix of sleepers. The "expensive" plastic ones in the wettest areas, going to wood in the areas with the best drainage.
I bloody love your channel 🙂
When' the next Calendar out?!
If you use lumber for the sleepers, you might be able to use either something such as aromatic cedar or (not sure if they exist in Ireland) Osage orange (are they trees or bushes?) plants, AKA hedge apple. These are two wood options that resist rot quite well. Though the one problem with the hedge apple idea is whilst it resists rot and it REALLY tough, it'll probably be fairly expensive if you can get it at all.
I treat any untreated wood I use at or below grade (such as fence posts) by charring the outside- a simple enough task with a big propane torch. There's probably sciencey data on the effectiveness of this, but from personal experience, it extends the life of spruce and pine by at least 10 years. Just something for you to keep in mind for future projects.
I use treated fence rails, that are approx 3" x 2" on my line at home and my commercial line. My supplier cuts them to my required length and you can see that the preservative doesn't penetrate very far, so I stand them in a creosote bath for 48 hours, turning them after 24 hours. Real creosote is very effective and can still be purchased for agricultural use. The secret is to ensure the wood is dry and that the creosote gets plenty of time to be absorbed by the grain.
I've made over 10,000 sleepers this way and the oldest are still fine after 11 years in the ground. They need to be in cleanish ballast on a membrane, and ths tops must be clear so that they can breath.
I was waiting for pros and cons on the other types!
Others have said, I think a mix is probably wise, wood where you can replace easily like straights, and plastic or concrete in the more complex areas, curves and points.
I presume concrete is the most expensive of the 3
It's one of, plastic isn't far off the same price if not a little more to buy, that being said the lifespan difference is quite large
Using what is best for you seams to be working well bro and looking forward to see more track being laid. Safe travels y'all. Ken.
Morning Tim. After some thought I think wooden sleepers are the best choice for now. Plastic might be best overall for your concerns, but concrete is overkill. Concrete is only as good as the mix, reenforcement bars and skill of the person making them.
You could use mostly wood and sprinkle some concrete and plastic ones in to test.
Without proper ballast and grade your choices are limited.
Thinking outside the box, would a shallow canal work? You could pull the little barges with a variety of animals you already have and materials are needed only for the barges.
That, of course is off course in your plans, I know. Cheers all. 🇨🇦
Thanks for posting Tim
When the first railways started, they used almost anything to use as ties. In your case, if you have anything that you can use to make a railroad tie, use it. You can always get the recycled plastic tie later.
Wood where it's easy to replace, plastic where it isn't.
Also, maybe consider making a tool for scraping off the mats of vegetation that want to grow wherever you leave bare ground. Either transplant it somewhere else, or just chuck it into a compost heap for more organic matter for your fields.
I'm voting for concrete. I have little money, so I make my own pavers from Redimix using milk jug bottoms as forms. you could do this with a rebar connection between pavers. The spacing and holes in the pavers could be easily achieved with a simple wooden template form that could be used repeatedly. I have also incorporated an old vibrator from a Lazy boy recliner to release the air from my poured pavers in the drying process. you would use far less concrete than a full length 'sleeper", as you call them, and they would be lighter and easier to install.
I would personally use concrete sleepers as they are quick and cheap to make, and last a lifetime under the conditions that the railway will be used in.
Quick? Cheap?
I made some modular concrete planters, small concrete panels connected with iron rods thru the ends. They didn't work very well, but I got some experience making concrete molds.
I suggest making some concrete molds with a trapezoidal cross section, they will pop out of the molds easy.
Make the molds in sets (they can be built as a single unit) of however many sleepers you can get out of a sack of concrete mix. A day or two for the concrete to set in the mold, then pop them out gently to finish curing and reuse the molds.
How many sets of molds depends on you daily production goals.
Use heavy wire to reinforce the concrete. PVC pipe sections for spike holes.
OOPS! Do Not Forget to grease the molds!
500 concrete sleepers? I'm glad it's your back not mine. Jim Y
What about an alternative wood treatment like charring/burning the outside layer like they use in Japan to prevent rot? Might be able to use your charcoal oven to do large batches all at one time.
Shou sugi ban technique would be quite cheap to test
Decisions, decisions, my suggestion would be to get some old railroad ties (sleepers) put them on the ground running
parallel to your steel rails then lay your rail line on top of the the old ties. My choice for new sleepers would be the plastic ones.
you could char the wooden sleepers (if they're hard wood) to make them last longer and make them somewhat waterproof.
as far as i know, you can re-char the wood a fes times, if the outer layer is worn or damaged...
I have seen people vacuum impregnating wood where you put it submerged in for instance linseed oil and suck the air out. When released back in the wood will be filled with oil instead.
I don't know the longevity or cost of it though.
Second: This is the boring "don't poison the environment" person commenting.
Just because life seems to grow doesn't mean it is harmless to people. Things grow in lead poisoned dirt and salt water too and there are species that thrive in diesel tanks.
Maybe you could separate the sleeper functions of setting the rail position, gauge and supporting the wagon weight. Rebar could be bent into a "staple" with the pipes welded to it and driven into the ground. Supports of bricks, concrete pavers, wood, plastic or any thing else handy can be placed under the rails to support the weight. Or the ends of the staples could be placed in small holes which are then filled with concrete.
Concrete would crack without gravel wood will rot so I think plastic might be your best choice
why would concrete crack without gravel?
@@RFDarter concrete is only strong if its well bedded, for example if you lay concrete slabs without a level base of sand (or if the bed is eroded out from under them) they will quickly crack just from people walking over them.
Time for a quad.
You know it makes sense
I've seen some railroads that used metal ties. I think they had a cross section that was sort of open at the bottom, with little flanges to keep them from sinking into the soil, and perhaps they were prestressed to keep them from bending under load. I'm curious about the concrete ties. Would you cast them? With rebar and prestressed? And the holes in the casting? I don't know how heavy the loads you use are so maybe prestressed isn't required. If you used plastic could you have a wide piece at the bottom to make them more stable on whatever they rest on?
Thanks for sharing. Fascinating.
I'd start with wood and replace with more durable sleepers when/if they start to rot. I have some raised flower beds made of commercial treated lumber, some rotted away in a couple years, others are still solid after 15+ years
Recycled plastic.
And I recall you rather liked them when you used them before.
But it is your (and Sandra's) farm.
You will know what is best for you.
☮
We have polypodia growing in the Cataract Gorge in Tasmania. Bloody cold there. And your rain fall is fed by the gulfstream.
Concrete sleepers used on the big railway have steel tendons inside that are stretched before the concrete is poured and only released after it has set, the tendons keep the concrete in a stat of compression where it is strongest.
Concrete. Last a long time and don't pollute the soil.
As much as I hate plastic, it seems like a great fit for this scenario, especially if it's recycled.
Loving the context!! thanks :)
Looks to me that a couple of well placed goats or sheep might be in order! 😊
Maybe you can reach out to some pladtic recycling company to sponsor your sleepers?
With all the long lived, work load and environmental issues of wood and concrete considered, i would recommend the plastic ones.
After all, they are too, made of trees! Well, some hundreds thousand years old, petrified, pumped out of the ground and chemical reworked. 😅
Assuming it’s not too expensive, based on the conditions, the plastic ties are the best option assuming their mechanical properties are similar to wood. I know on standard gauge operations they’ve been used successfully.
Wood is going to be the second best option. Lasts long enough, cheapest and easiest to replace.
Concrete should really only be used for well maintained ballasted road beds. This is because when one concrete tie fails the adjacent ties do not handle the extra strain well and will fail prematurely creating a domino effect of failure. Wood and plastic are not affected in this way. Not to mention the freeze thaw cycle I assume you experience.
A proper road bed will prevent weed growth, but as you explained it’s an expensive endeavor.
People who don't live in our climate don't get just how *wet* everything gets. I am in Scotland and for most of the year, everything is soaking. Concrete sleepers would probably be more environmentally friendly in the long run. Plastic one are more resistant. I don't know about the microplastic situation but at least you would be recycling plastic that ends up in landfill or some poor sod's field in another country.
Wood, while being cheaper and easier does not last.
May I suggest, wood for areas that are easier to maintain and plastic or concrete for harder to maintain areas (or if you have enough for larger sections) . Replace the wooden ones with concrete / plastic as you can afford and need to replace the wooden ones.
Maybe now that you need so many sleepers it is profitable to make your own recycled plastic sleeper post. You just need something to melt them down and a press that will pull the melted plastic through a square tube to shape it. If you can get some old plastic from greenhouses or something like that, it might work out well.
Char the wood and treat with wood tar or linseed oil. Like the Japanese
Answer to your question is so obvious. Many many railway companies around the world tried everything for decades to develop the best solution for sleepers. And the answerr is... concrete. If concrete is a good grade and made well in controled manner, it will last for decades without major repairs. I know that you are interested in price also, but all that railways companies were too. And they still choose concrete sleeepers. And I don't even mention the they are pretensioned concrete. Also the railway understructure is from crushed stones for a good reasons. Mainly it very well distributes load from rails and sleepers to the topsoil and also somehow prevented grass to grow between sleepers. In your case, topsoil seems to be soggy mud. But still an interesting garden project. Good luck.
You aren't really comparing apples to apples though.
If I want to buy a cheap doodad from china, it will probably be injection moulded plastic. Thats isn't the cheapest solution for small scale production though.
Plus theres different scales. a commercial railway has to deal with higher speeds and much more weight.
Concrete would be my shout
I think recycled plastic sleepers would be the best option because they won't rot and won't release any toxins into the soil and would be cheaper and easier to make than concrete sleepers.
Tim, I'm from a temperate rainforest in the eastern US and we have the same ferms growing in mosses in our trees. We would need to look at the spores to be sure. I think you might have an invasive species! I doubt it will have any significant impact to your ecosystem.
Some old tracks out in western Queensland are over 130 years old, most lines stopped operating years ago, some are still used for tourist trains and some sections still have many original timber sleepers. Plastic would not fair so well in those hot dry conditions.
You do what the main railways do, weed killing trains, basically spray acetic acid. But a proper ballast job would raise the track about the ground moisture, it's why railways do it along with stability.
Treated timber is okay but not very long lasting. Concrete is not ideally suited to being in wet mushy ground, they will sink in & if you get a cold snap which freezes the ground, the concrete will break up from frost jacking. The best cost effective material is the recycled plastic, expensive outlay but much longer lasting.
🎉Thanks Tim😃
BT use pressure treated creosoted poles for their network, they're estimated to have a 20 year working life with regular retreatments, and there's only about 4FT actually in the ground.
Regardless of what you opt for, you should consider using plastic sheeting under them to stop the weeds growing back through and choking your rails.
Genuine railway sleepers were pressure treated with creosote to quite some depth, 2' to 3' inches, they lasted decades, not like the joke stuff you buy from the garden centre today where it’s shown the pressure tank door and that’s all you get. I'd use plastic sleepers mostly because it's using up waste plastics.
Have you considered thinking a bit more outside the box?
do you even need sleepers?
it seems to me a rail made from angle section stock, or some kind of ladder arrangement with spikes attached to go into the ground could work. If you need more stability you can always set it in concrete.
Just relying on spikes would make grading easier. you could have such a system a foot off the ground if need be, it would be more like a roller coaster!.
It would need less concrete than concrete sleepers, the spikes are the only thing in contact with the ground
you aren't dealing with massive loads, so theres no particular need to make it like a traditional railway.
The greatest danger for concrete is frost in combination with water. As there is not much frost in Ireland, concrete is probably the cheapest and most environmentally friendly solution.
can you get more of the recycled plastic ones tim? they seem to be so fitting
I’d recommend being careful with the grass on the rails. If it remains wet, it can decompose into pectin due to repeated pressing from the wheels, which is a quite effective high pressure lubricant! It would make braking largely impossible if you are caught unaware.
More rails!
How about, 2 concrete feet, flower pot sized, spaced with a piece of rebar cast in. Yes the rebar will eventually rust, but so will the rails. One thick bar may be cheaper, and definitely lighter, than concrete. The spacing will be locked in, and the concrete would have needed some reinforcing anyway. although much less metal. You could even replace the rebar with some of your galvanized pipe. While resisting corrosion, you may have to deform the ends to lock them into the concrete.
my hometown is also getting more and more rain. it might even be so much that in a few decades it counts at a temperate rainforest!
How about a mix, you coat the wooden battens in the recycled plastic. you get the advantage of plastic and the cheapness (ish)of wood ?
When it comes to your groundwork, rather than landscape fabric, have you considered using cardboard as a barrier material? My sister and I have been trying that as barrier material with rocky areas for landscaping, her underneath a gravel pathway, me for a ring around a tree covered with river rocks. So far it has held up well for both of us, though mine was only set up earlier this year and hers has been in place for about two years now. From what I've seen on it, it's effective for blocking light to prevent growth, biodegradable without leaving behind plastics or creating a mesh since it's a paper product, and will still allow drainage as it gets wet since the paper is porous. Best of all, it's cheap, often free. I imagine you could probably use that under the railway regardless of what sleepers you're using and whether you're using ballast or not, since the weight of the rails should hold it down. At least a bit of ballast would probably still be a good idea for rails that will remain in the same spot for a long time as it will help distribute the weight as rolling stock goes over and keep the rails from sliding around, but with a barrier material you could get by with just a thin layer rather than needing to build up a bank.
It( the decision) all comes down to cost/benefit of the materials you are considering using. As most of the commenters have posited, each has benefits and what your needs and wants are. I don't know your budget or how much time you are willing to use for maintenance which will increase with additional track. You need to keep that in consideration as well.
Plastic is clearly the most durable material for a permanent installation
The question is always the same time and costs.⏳💰
is there a particular video that explains your strap and pin tie rail construction and the reasons for your choices?
Here in Germany, the weeds on the railway tracks are fought with poison.
Any hobbyist gardener knows how quickly weeds can sprout. At the many railway stations in Germany, the recovery is particularly high. The railway is now opening a new course.
The German Railways wants to use less Glyphosate. Last year, another 57 tons of the controversial weed killer were sprayed along the glacier.
Next year it should be half as much, said a company spokesman for the German press agency. Instead, weeds are vigorously manually controlled to keep the rails free.
"On far parts of the stretch network, no glyphosate will be released from 2020," the railway announced. Until 90 percent of the network is treated with glyphosate once a year, around 63,000 ice kilometers. Except for its nature reserves and bridges.
Die Bahn is by its own account the largest single user of glyphosate in Germany, albeit with only 0.4 percent of the total. Also farmers and gardeners put the means one.
The best wood would be a wood that does not rot. I’m lucky to live right near the california redwoods which are lovely trees that rot very slowly. I have timber pieces that have sat in the yard for years and are good as new except for some dirt on them. These would be perfect for you, but I imagine very expensive if you could even get any.
Timber is probably the best option if only for the ability to get the railway built
a kind of rotating shaft with nylon or steel cable to turn and wack those weeds and grass into mulch would be helpful i guess
Being from NZ kinda assumed that most places had epiphytes, but that map shows we are pretty unique (and as other commenter has said not all of NZ has them, our east coast is much drier and doesn't get them as often / at all in certian places.
🤔 Raised monorail with gyro balancing?... Overengineered?😂
How is the plastic sleepers you installed last year holding up? Micro plastic is a thing in agriculture especially ecological production. Would be a bummer if you polluted your fields inadvertently.
Concrete with a silicone paint/sealant on?
Can you get old tyres for free? One strip under and one strip over a wood sleeper? Strips from old glasfiber boats?
A few brainstormed suggestions to get your brain cogs turning Tim. Your ingenuity beats mine by a couple of magnitudes so I trust you will find a good solution.
Anyway, a comment for the AI to chew on. Take care👋
Here in the NW USA we are swapping to concrete sleepers
Between the "cost and availability" and the inevitably low ecological impact of wood, I'm leaning in that direction. Plastic has a high availability, but in less suitable forms, requiring further processing to be viable. Similar with concrete, requiring huge ecological processing costs before it is a viable material. Both plastic and concrete will be around a lot longer than your rails.
I can't say if the plastic or the wood would be the better steward for the planet, in the long run: wood because it requires leaves less effect, or plastic because of its current abundance in undesirable forms), but those are my thoughts on that.
Can you come up with a video showing the pros and cons of plastic and concrete sleepers. Even without a video I would suggest plastic especially if you can make them yourself.
Better to go with the plastic or concrete sleepers they might be more expensive now but it will save time and money in the long run because you won't have to replace them
Perhaps the wooden sleepers at first, if nothing less to lower your initial costs. You seem to have sections you can replace with recycled plastic already, so (much to some grumbling from your future self) you could make it a bigger project to replace more sleepers in the future when the funds allow it for more plastic sleepers
Unless you can use something like bois d'arc, your sleepers will rot away too quickly. Fenceposts made of it are typically the last things standing, even a century after the rest of the fence fell away.
I think you may be better off with the plastic sleepers, and perhaps use any untreated scrap wood to farm mushrooms (unless you just don't want to farm mushrooms, in which case I'm sure there are other things you can do with the wood).
Hi Tim, I would say that you should go with concrete sleepers, they might be more expensive but you likely won't have to replace them very often and they are the most environmentally friendly. As you pointed out treated wooden sleepers aren't great as they eventually release all that nasty stuff into the soil, and while plastic sleepers might be cheap they also have the same problem with microplastics leaching out into the soil, this will happen regardless of quality, and while they might not affect you or your animals or crops right now it'll be a problem for whoever owns the land down the line.
So in conclusion, concrete sleepers will save you time and effort in the future, and you won't have to worry about them poisoning your soil. Plus it'll just turn back to gravel and sand in a few hundred years.
I'm gonna be real, the microplastics issue is next to irrelevant surely. It takes thousands of year to degrade plastic in landfill.
It MAY depending on the plastics leech incredibly small amounts of things like phylates but as I understand it that's as much as it does.
and microplastics have never been found to pass from say soil to root to vegetable,
I’d go with creosote treated wood - get it done and working. How many years do you realistically need the sleepers to last? The railway doesn’t get that much load and wouldn’t be a daily thing.
Is there any benefit to charring the outer layer of the timber sleepers? I don't know if it's practical but it would be inexpensive if a bit time consuming, provided it worked.