"dpb" wrote in message ...
SteveB wrote:
How much does a railroad tie weigh? We are thinking of using some for a
landscaping project but are wondering how difficult they might be to
handle.

Perce

It varies with the wood. Some were made intentionally for railroad use,
and some were made intentionally for landscape design.

The ones on the railroads I would estimate at close to 200# each, and
landscapers at up to half that weight.

But even for those which are actual r-r ties they can be different. There
are two groups in the batch I have, both of which are used ties ("used" as
in having been rail ties)--one is white oak, the others are yellow pine.
Needless to say, there's a difference in average weight between the two
groups owing to the density difference of the two wood species. Within
that, there are still pine ones that weigh more than some of the lighter
oak ones.

When in TN, I spent quite some time at a small one-man sawmill in order to
get good deal from the old codger on hardwood that came in hit-n-miss
where his prime business was ties for the N&W or mine timbers. These were
mostly oak w/ black locust also used when it was brought in by the
loggers. OTOH, farther south and west where there were few if any
hardwoods, SYP was common and in the west firs and other coniferous
were/are the most likely to be found.

Yes. IOW, in a lot of places, they used what they had. This was
particularly true on the first coast to coast railroad. I would be
interested in the exact number of different tree species used for those.

In railroad ties, to a real old railroad person, I'm sure that there would
be a list starting from the best to the worst, yet sometimes they used the
worst for lots of reasons. It was close, cheap, etc.

And wouldn't gauge (width) of the wheels dictate the lengths of the ties?

Steve