New ties

[Charlie B]

There were 18 wheelers rolling through here for three days! Each truck brought in 200 ties. I counted a rough estimation of about 6,400 ties stacked up. If they lay about 3,000 ties per mile, they have enough to replace about 2 1/4 miles. I bet if I drove down the road 3-4 miles, I'd find another stack of 'em further down and on and on.

I doubt they will replace every tie, every other tie will probably enable them to have class 3 track which is the highest allowed without having it inspected for defects annually with a service like Sperry offers (I can't remember the proper term for this and that bothers me) I think class 3 allows 45 MPH freight.
I have seen some operators replace them all, but that is not a wise choice. If a tie is not split and will hold the spike and gauge it is a good tie. They will get at least 5.5 miles out of that pile of ties and they should be good for 20 years. The FRA track requirements are on line and downloadable in a PDF file <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=15770">www.hsdl.org/?view&did=15770</a><!-- w -->
Charlie