How It's Made: Railway Bridge Ties 

I like to fall asleep to these videos.

If we were on opposite sides of the world, then we could meet up each day to watch our daily/nightly how it's made.

@@elijahdage5523 Me too it's so relaxing...lol

No wood has been hurt/injured in the process.

It’s a mighty fine looking debarker but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a menacing son of gun

@@kellanedits97 0:50 you're welcome lad

its calm asf

Apik apikm..apik

who else read this in a British accent

@@JHDZ14 you know Britain. From Central Europe

Lotta lumber in North America still, and regenerative logging laws mean there will be for quite some time

Concrete is slowly replacing all the wooden ones here in US. A track near me sees 2 trains a day and they just replace track with wood ties so I guess it depends on the traffic on the line? Not sure.

@@Jack22000 concrete ties are very expensive…and depending on location very maintenance needy….if the revenue on the line can’t pay for that, wood ties are still best.

RIP Tardar Sauce. 🖤 I will never call you Grumpy Cat. 💙

Agreed. G Scale is too big. N is too small, so is O scale. It’s too big. But with HO, you can have a very well and detailed layout.

Me too

What's hoe scale? Sounds like fat women streetwalkers. Also known in the astronomy science world as BLACK HOLES.

Cleveland & Berea Railfan Productions how about Z scale

Closer to around 1.500 lbs...

Must not have much experience if you don't know how lumber is graded.

Nope they are not they are mulcher

@@geoe5137 The joke is that big box store lumber is shit.

Solid Oak even.

I think it costs 1million dollars to build one mile. I’m not sure I’ll have to check that

Raw cross ties was $34.50 a piece delivered to that plant 6 months ago I'd be willing to guess that the price is now under $30

JarJarBinks - Amtrak seems to now use concrete sleepers, at least in the northeast.

@@ClockworksOfGL, most of the Northeast Corridor and portions of the Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Harrisburg use the concrete sleepers. The exceptions being at the switches, fixed overpasses, and moveable bridges. The Delaware River Port Authority's PATCO High-Speed Line between Philadelphia and Lindenwold, NJ also uses concrete sleepers.

That's some hard work. I made a walking stick last week and felt proud of myself.

@@johnpenguin9188 That reminds me: when my family was staying on Beaver Island for summer vacation, my dad found a huge wicked-looking stick he decided to take home. He then painted it mahogany and made it his own walking stick! A couple years ago, he dressed up as Gandalf for Halloween and used it as his walking stick.

They were making alot more than that for ties back then. And they were using sawmills to do it not axes.

@@verteup Look up Railroad Tie Association history. Hand hewn railroad ties were still being made in the 1930's. I may not have been clear. The men that made the ties paid my grandfather 25 cents just for the wood. We are talking Meade County Kentucky during the depression. Selling a couple of oak trees for $1 would have been a good payday. Money was scarce on the farm. Most purchases were made by barter with eggs, milk or homemade pies. Grandfather would often have strangers stay in the barn during the winter in exchange for some basic help around the farm.

@@nicholasscott350 Sorry for being so harsh. History like this is beyond interesting to me. My granddad was born in 1912 and he made railroad ties in the 30s and 40s with a steam powered sawmill. He did his first logging job with axes and crosscut saws at 12 years old. Not as a helper either it was his own job. This was in Monroe county West Virginia. He died of cancer before I was ever born. Probably one of the biggest tragedies I've ever heard of. He got almost 3 dollars per railroad tie, by the way. He was a logger all of his life. thanks for sharing your story.

Had an urban fragrance shop mix me a cologne they called Black Sand. It had a honeysuckle base with a touch of coal tar. The women in the shopping aisles were always turning heds. Then the next day at work passing brick/shoveling mortar, the funk was delicious

I can’t be the only one that likes the smell of the brake pads after stopping on trains

Without that smell there's no point in exploring old train tracks.

You're not. I actually have a client that manufacturers creosote. Went to his plant one time and it smelled heavenly.

I think of creosote and my entire childhood flashes before my eyes. :) Prominently featured in that 'movie' is the Pikes Peak Railway terminus in Manitou Springs on a sunny summer day.

I’m sure god would agree with you 👍

Savage Activity Creosote makes them last.

And dont forget they up in the air and not touching the ground so they get to dry on all sides. My uncle's doug fir deck boards in Maryland lasted over 30 years as it was off the gound covered and well aired

The railroad will be using these long past 25 years.

Then everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

No it didn't

Yeah I would definitely have a designated chain for cutting those. Once the chain on my saw gets old ( meaning I have sharpened more than a few times ) I use them for cutting brush, tree roots, and anything else that has dirt or an old nail. A dull chain is aggravating to work with and adds danger to an already dangerous activity.

@@benbrice9343 Good advice. I live in rural Thailand near a wood reclamation yard where they tear down old teak houses and re-purpose the wood. They run a handheld metal detector, like ones found in the airport, over each timber before sawing it. The wood is outrageously expensive.

in my country using railroad sleepers in gardens are not permitted because of the environmental damage they could cause because all railroad sleepers have chemicals to protect it from pests and rotting which is toxic

Maybe you need an app for your brain . . .

@@TRPGpilot I think that leaded avgas is getting to you.

You must get better ties then the crap one csx buys for us to use. My hands hurt just setting spikes because the ties are so hard.

@@justinfowler2857 lol ya we have hardwood oak ties. But just depends on how fresh they are and how much oil comes out of them lol while spiking. Switch ties are the worst they are always dry

@Jupp Schlabutt true lol they burn before the rot

@@5150cash Our ties have basically no Preservation anymore. They're hard as a rock and rot much quicker. All to save a buck now in exchange for long term higher costs. Oh well poor quality ties means more repairs. More repairs equals more money. Lol

@@justinfowler2857that's true but with uprr it's also a money thing. Where ties are needed they don't want to put any in but when the FRA comes in or a derailment then they bitch and makes us put ties in....🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

There are definitely less well maintained railway lines. I’m sure the narrator was just giving a general estimate. I mean technically there are still ties probably 100+ years old still connected to the active railway but long abandoned and never traversed. I’ve seen some awesome overgrown railroads I wish I knew a railroad engineer who could answer, is it realistic to imagine driving a private (or stolen) locomotive and joyriding down those tracks and just bashing trees and rocks etc all out of the way? Or would the locomotive actually derail disappointingly quick?

@Matthew Chenault I live in Rhode Island twenty minutes from the ocean. I just don't think they fix anything til it's clearly gonna fail.

50oldsmobile Buckingham Branch RR crossing the James River at Bremo Bluff!

Love the Old Dominion!

Mill and treatment plant in Goshen virginia as well

Smart idea, huh?

@@jacobvanantwerp2001 yes, most definitely.

You can't stack bridge ties because they're about 3-4 times as heavy as a regular tie.

I've seen them called sleepers here in the US, though it's mainly the concrete once called that. Otherwise wooden ones are just ties.

Learned "sleepers" from watching Thomas the Tank Engine. (It was a fun show, esp. the early ones).

In Australia we also call them sleepers. Never heard them referred to a ties before.

They might be on the wood front, but creosote is pretty terrible for humans and the environment. It is responsible for a large number of EPA Superfund sites.

Does also seem a little weird how little is automated. I know jobs and all, but automation does result in more consistently.

🎶You'd be working on the railroad, all the live-long day.🎶

Cut a old tie and it had Creosote all the way through. A new one only soaks about a inch into it.

@@MrRander7769 I wish they were an inch of creosote. Ours are maybe a quarter inch at best. Basically they're dried and dipped. That's it.

almost 100 years I'm sure

I design equipment for rail applications. Those people probably mumble "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" in their sleep.

Union Pacific tracks between Chicago and St. Louis were upgraded to use continuous track mounted to concrete ties during the 0bama presidency. The reason given for the upgrade--at a huge cost to taxpayers--was for high speed Amtrak trains. It was supposed to cut the travel time between Chicago and St. Louis from 5 1/2 hours down to maybe 3 hours. Once the upgrade was completed, they did some test runs of Amtrak trains traveling maybe 110-120 mph. However, today the Amtrak trains are traveling about the same speed (80 mph) as they were prior to the upgrade. So, high speed Amtrak trains didn't quite materialize like we were told was going to happen. However, I did notice the Union Pacific freight trains are traveling faster on the upgraded tracks--around 75 mph. It makes me think the real reason for upgrading the tracks was to allow higher speeds for the freight trains and not Amtrak.

@@ILGuy2012 That's how UP works. Everything for freight, nothing for contractually obligated passenger rail services.

@@ILGuy2012 class 1 railroads are full of crooks and lobbyists

I was thinking the same thing.

It depends on what type of train is going to use the rails because it's a lot cheaper to just weld . And diesel trains don't really need seamless traks they are built like a tank . That being said this video just might be old .

@@francoisrossouw9864 very old

False, some rail is jointed by brackets and some are welded.

Yes it's an older video, but I'm glad they are putting up all their show segments, always stuff to learn. (And I can't stand that voice over on the independent uploader of How It's Made content).

@@rockclimber3045 I have train tracks near me that use plates and are not welded

I might be wrong but I thought that the sleepers were the concrete ties.

Especially when receiving a full bedroom set for your trouble!

Oak is actually kinda cheap. Looks like white oak they were sawing

@@KaizenSteelDrums ohh that's cool to learn. I'm a carpenter and I always associate oak millwork as a premium type product.

I'm a Sawyer at a mill and I cut the ties out of low grade red oak. The good ones we save for other orders.