(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

Salvage Railroad Ties

I

in-too-deep

Well-known Member
Hi All,

We like using old railroad ties for fence corners and pens and corrals. There is a section of rail nearby that is getting a LOT of new ties installed in the near future. I stopped and talked to the Canadian Pacific guy about the old ties, and he said they pay a salvage company to take them and the salvage company won't give/sell ties to a Regular Joe. (I'll bet the EPA is involved) He did say if you find a pile and you come on the weekend when no one is around, you can take them. Well, that's stealing and I can't bring myself to do that. I asked a guy that works for an independent track maint. company on a different line, and he said the exact same thing. Again, that's stealing. It's frustrating that they're just sitting there and someone has to pay to dispose of them, but they're off limits. Maybe I'll keep my eye out for the salvage company folks and ask them directly.
 
Local place here bought a pile of them from the rail line going by, they were in bad shape. Well I suppose the rail payed to have them picked up.

They piled them up and used them to heat the shop in the big wood firnace for the next decade. Was always a funny sweet smell coming into town in winter.

Yea, I was surprised that went on that long, it was only in the past 20 years.....

Those ties are in never never land. The rail wants them gone they are a nuisance, but with the paperwork they get locked into a lot of mungo jumbo. They -wish- the ties
would just disappear.

I understand tho, picking them up on a weekend just doesn?t feel right it would be hard to do that.

Paul
 
Yeah, I spose. I hope to buy them directly and save them the trouble of sorting, loading, and hauling.
 
I had a neighbor who worked for the railroad. I asked him about ties and he told me how much money and when to come have him load them up. I don't know if it was above board or not ? We loaded them up at the local offices. Used to be able to go to the phone company or some local utility ? I forget the name ? and get telephone poles. Those you had to load by hand and no chainsaws allowed.
Try extra hard to get what they call bridge ties. I got a few of those. They are a lot heavier !
 
It's an interesting situation but I'm curious to know who you would be stealing from if you took the ties? The railroad has set them out to be picked up by the recycler who is probably paid a certain price per tie for disposal. They don't belong to the recycler yet and the railroad wants them gone. Seems you would actually be doing the railroad a favor by taking some ties off their hands and reducing the disposal fees.
 
No selling to landscape outfits up here at all, not sure what they do with the old ties but one thing for sure, unless you have some way of skirting regulations, they are no longer available or used. You still see them all over the place but that's stuff that has been sitting there for years. A Domtar plant that used to treat them nearby is long gone but the site is off limits and a lot of nearby residential homes are stressing big time because of the soil contamination by creosote, plus maybe other chemicals as well. Scoff if you want at the EPA but you or I wouldn't want or choose to live nearby, that's someone else's problem right?
 
There"s a place NW of me, closer to you, that often advertises on cl...St. Cloud, Brainerd, Bemidji, Fargo...that sells bundles of about 16 ties, for about $8 per tie. Might also check Dairyland Peach out of Sauk Centre...can find them online.
 
While they are not illegal per say the industry that makes rail ties; power poles; and other CCA lumber voluntarily pulled all of these products off the residential use list so the government would not ban them for use in commercial settings. This is why the railroad or electric company will not give them to you even though they want them gone.

But with that said with little enforcement residential homeowners can still find these products if they look around.
 
A lot of hand wringers posting. If the ties are in good shape and about ten years old they recycle them. The holes where the spikes were they drive in a wood plug "dowels"the same size as the spike. Then they can reuse it. Now just up from me two years ago they were doing a couple of repairs. I walked right up to the crew AND the gang boss and asked if I could get a couple. Boss said we are done for the day in about 1/2 hour. After that we know nothing. I showed up with my trailer about 5 minutes before. They had one of those big CAT Bucket loaders there. The operator took four at a time in the bucket and loaded my trailer. I got eight beautiful ties. I had some bottles of spring water in the truck and handed them out. When they say we don't see anything it means if you want them we know nothing and if a cop comes by just say I asked. Simple as that. Everybody knows what is going on. At a tourist railroad I know they really lucked out. Major tie replacement was going on near by main line and they were able to get car loads. Just dump them along our tracks and we will pick them up. If you have a company that does rail repair near you just go and ask. Most time you would get a charge of $10.oo each tops. Just go ask.
 
Here I can buy them at a number of places, I have also gotten few goose neck trailer loads of them at a time,, I guess its a area thing, I would guess there is still 75-100 at least still in my piles I also have a bunch from the old stock yards that were here many years ago, most of those are 14' or better long
cnt
 
I've seen them at Menards here in IN.

can usually find someone on craiglist selling them.
 
I bought 40 last fall from a guy by Barnesville for $8 each, but its almost 50 miles one way. These ones are 15 miles away.
 
(quoted from post at 16:00:07 05/01/19) A lot of hand wringers posting. If the ties are in good shape and about ten years old they recycle them. The holes where the spikes were they drive in a wood plug "dowels"the same size as the spike. Then they can reuse it. Now just up from me two years ago they were doing a couple of repairs. I walked right up to the crew AND the gang boss and asked if I could get a couple. Boss said we are done for the day in about 1/2 hour. After that we know nothing. I showed up with my trailer about 5 minutes before. They had one of those big CAT Bucket loaders there. The operator took four at a time in the bucket and loaded my trailer. I got eight beautiful ties. I had some bottles of spring water in the truck and handed them out. When they say we don't see anything it means if you want them we know nothing and if a cop comes by just say I asked. Simple as that. Everybody knows what is going on. At a tourist railroad I know they really lucked out. Major tie replacement was going on near by main line and they were able to get car loads. Just dump them along our tracks and we will pick them up. If you have a company that does rail repair near you just go and ask. Most time you would get a charge of $10.oo each tops. Just go ask.
Click to expand...
ou sure got that first sentence right!!!! They sure do show up often on many of the threads.
 

ranch is on the railroad... and yes someone collects them and hauls them off... BUt then when I shred on their side of the fence once a year, I find a couple that slide down in the draw, that they were too lazy to go pick up... and they are in the way of the fence line. I normal push them away from the fence so I can work it,, but I would not loose any sleep over pulling back out of the bottom...

Being the RR bought an easement from us a hundred years ago or more, and they constantly are starting fires,,, keeping the vegetation cut back from the fence is important. They have burnt down my fence 3 times now, and once set the whole 600 acres on fire. We barely saved the house, so again, we keep the fence clean, shredded so the fire folks can work down it if needed. Every two years all the fence lines get cleaned up and cut. The occasion tie or spike bucket usually gets push out of the way.
 
I have heard the claims of the chemicals in the ties being hazardous. That said, I can buy them new here in Michigan along with lots of CCA treated poles. No law or reg against using them except in residential use where people can come in contact with them. In New York, I could not find anyone selling CCA treated lumber anymore. No problem here though.
 
Rail Road boarders part of my property. There has been a pile buy the road for several years now. I sure wish they would come get them or someone would come steal them. Tired of looking at them! Once in awhile someone will stop and grab a few.
 
Another thought ..just remember those little black sticks weigh around 150 to 200 pounds each. Depends on the wood. Oak ties weigh almost a battle ship. The cheep ones are pine but railroads don't like them if they can avoid them.
 
They were tearing up the rail way line here in canada -- huge piles of ties mixed with the ballast (rock) all helter scelter. My neighbor was going past there every day with his loader tractor and would stop and dig out several tiers and get them in the bucket of his loader -- taking them home . Later in the week while he was at work in town -- the RCMP pulled into his yard and examined the pile of ties he had brought home . they told his sister that they were stolen and would need to be returned or would face charges .
 
I will bet the railroad, in the case described by the o.p. Sells the ties to the salvage company.
The rr is not stupid and knows that there are salvage outfits willing to pay for what the rr pulls out.
So you might indeed be stealing them from the salvage company.

That is why the gang boss pulling them says go ahead, he don,t care if you steal them cause the rr already got its money from the salvage company.

Lowe's sell them down here for $17 to $20 each for regular 8 footers.
 
The ties at the lumber companies have to come from somewhere. I'm sure the salvage company sells most of them to the box stores.
 
The son of a good customer of mine was arrested and sentenced to jail for taking some cross ties that had been replaced where the RR ran across their place.

-Scott
 
We all know that's plain BS. Those poles and those ties lie on the ground and many times right by drainage ditches and they lie on the ground under the rails for decades and also right along county drains. ALL water is drained off them right into the ground or county drains. Politics!
 
I worked for a small railroad a few years ago. The creosote made the ties classified as a hazardous waste and expensive to dispose of, and illegal to not properly dispose of. If they could be sold however, they were then a byproduct and not waste. But that RR too was no longer allowed to give them away.
 
Check if any of your local landscapers or big box hardware stores sell used RR ties for landscape timbers. Hand pick the ones you want for posts, used ties vary a lot in both weight and quality.
 
Back in the late seventies I worked for a contractor for the new "Conrail" system. We were working along the main line near the world famous Horseshoe Curve. We dug a pit about 10' wide by 10' deep and about 40' long. A blower with a Ford industrial engine was used with a 24" pipe with slots on one side. Fire was started and ties dumped in. It burned so hot that there was no smoke and no smell. After about a week of use the fire was allowed to go out. It took about a week to cool down. Then a small crane with a magnet retrieved the plates and spikes for scrap. Ashes in the bottom of the pit were just powder. Hole was Backfilled and graded.
 
Not hand wringing here but a couple of years ago the power company here in west MN replaced a bunch of poles. I asked about getting some of the old ones. They gave em to me but I had to sign for em. Some EPA paperwork stating that I wasn't going to used them to landscape a residential property or burn them. Said the chemicals used to treat them made them a hazardous material for disposal. But I could cut them to length and use them for fence posts.

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 14:38:11 05/01/19) It's an interesting situation but I'm curious to know who you would be stealing from if you took the ties? The railroad has set them out to be picked up by the recycler who is probably paid a certain price per tie for disposal. They don't belong to the recycler yet and the railroad wants them gone. Seems you would actually be doing the railroad a favor by taking some ties off their hands and reducing the disposal fees.
Click to expand...

The OP is to be commended for not stealing them. They are a "crop" to the salvage company and taking them would be the same as stealing, as the OP said. It is much the same as stopping on the road and helping yourself to a dozen ears of corn from the field next tot he road. The value of the corn isn't that much, but it is stealing all the same unless you have permission.

Manager of a local Coop mentioned to a friend of mine that he was going to go get a dozen ears of corn from my friend's field. Friend replied that was no problem at all - next time he was in the Coop he would help himself to a few bolts and nuts...
 
Funny,around me in southern Michigan, the power company dumps power poles they pull or get broken off where they lay alongside the fields.

A few years ago we had a major power line project run by our farm. They were running a large 3 phase power line to a factory down the road from the farm. They ended up buying a right away from us along the roadside. Poles were out of the fields so we could live with it ( The fix was in anyway, the power line was going through rather we liked it or not so we might as well get some money out of it) One of the agreements made with the power company was we had a power line going to Dad's house running through a number of our fields. We weren't having 2 rows of poles a 150 feet apart. The agreement was the power line going to Dad's house was to be relocated to the new set of poles in the fencerow. Well Consumers decided to do that all along that line where it was feasible. A number got pulled on some of our rented ground and even on the chunk of ground my brother owns. We ended up with 11 power poles from our own ground they pulled and left. We have fencepost for a long time now.
 
So the laws may be different where you are, or you happened across a crew that isn't as "by the book" as others, or you can rationalize stealing in your mind and be good with it. That doesn't make what anyone else says untrue, or "hand-wringing."
 
Probably some kin to 'this food product caused cancer in mice.....when they twice their weight of it daily'!
If the creosote in light poles were very bad, then all the woodpeckers that wreck the poles would be dead!!
 
Here in Louisiana the RR I work for claims our scrap/used ties are infested with the Formosa termite.all our scrap ties are loaded in gondola cars and sent somewhere up north and burned.i change ties with a Backhoe and I?m running out of room to stack them,the pile must be 250 feet long by 10 feet tall waiting to be shipped north
 
There?s a pile of them just down the from me where the tracks cross the road that I can see from my driveway. New bundles of ties, spike buckets, and sections of rail have been there over two years and there is always someone stopping and taking a look, they have all disappeared and been replaced at least three times so far. It is so pathetic that every so often when an ad comes up on fb marketplace, idiots give directions on where this bunch is, sad really.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

jon f mn
Update on railroad flooding
Replies
17
Views
1K
bobfeather
B
Pipestem
Pacific and Western Gear Company Dozer
Replies
2
Views
442
AJ.
A
P
Full Elevator
Replies
8
Views
1K
NY 986
N
T
Shovel history ?
Replies
7
Views
633
Goose
Goose
W
Addition to quick fix: Not to steal Tgrashers post;
Replies
0
Views
386
Wheat47
W
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top