# What to do with old half rotten railroad ties?



## Michigan Escapee (Dec 23, 2015)

Ok, due to some renovation projects, I now have a monster pile of some rotten, some more or less intact railroad ties, or something similar looking. Most seem about 8-9 feet wide and coated in some kind of tar like substance, which did not fight off the rot so well. Various nails, rebars, etc going through them. Might be able to use a dozen of them for some kind of raised bed garden out back, the rest, hell if I know. 

Probably going to have to get them hauled to the dump by someone due to being in the city and not being able to have a hillbilly fire of creasote laden wood. 

Any ideas?


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## zogger (Dec 23, 2015)

I put pallets on used RxR ties for stacking. Gets the pallets off the ground and they last longer, the drying wood gets more air from underneath, plus the cats can get under there easy for rodent patrol. You can also use the old ties plus pressure treated scrap if you need to get the stack more level (always a good idea....believe me, I know this....)


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## PULLINmyPOULAN (Dec 23, 2015)

Post for a fence or this looks pretty cool


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## PULLINmyPOULAN (Dec 23, 2015)

table


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## PULLINmyPOULAN (Dec 23, 2015)




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## PULLINmyPOULAN (Dec 23, 2015)




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## PULLINmyPOULAN (Dec 23, 2015)




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## zogger (Dec 23, 2015)

Outstanding projects!


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## hupte (Dec 23, 2015)

PULLINmyPOULAN said:


> table


I cant wait to sit on that bench and eat a nice meal off the table. won't have to worry about bugs at least.


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## Patrick62 (Dec 23, 2015)

You guys are gonna roast me for this one...

I used to burn them. We had quite a pile of them, and cut and split them up and burned them in a stove that had a double wall heat exchanger flue rigged on the thing. 500 cfm fan blew air around about 6ft of the stove pile and was ducted over to a more suitable location to heat the trailer. The system was semi-safe as once a week I would literally ignite a flue fire and burn the pipe clean. Roared like a hoover for about 4 minutes! I know that the heated air was exiting the thing at 400 deg because one time a control relay fell out when the solder melted (yikes).

Do not try this. Your stove isn't equipped to handle literally burning creosote by the pound!!! 

cutting them up was another problem. full of sand and grit. Chainsaw would dull in a minute. Rigged a short bar to a 1/2 hp washing machine motor and filed the rakers really low. It cut like a mutha.... and chain speed was slow enough that the grid was less of a problem.


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## cantoo (Dec 23, 2015)

It's Christmas time and the best time to get rid of crap you don't want to haul to the dump and pay dumping fees.
Go to an appliance store and ask for a couple of big boxes, dishwasher or washer and dryer size.
Take the boxes home and set in the back of your pickup truck.
Cut the railway ties into pieces that fit inside the new cardboard box.
Tape the top of the cardboard box of railway ties shut.
Drive to home depot and park off to the side with your tailgate down and the box sitting at the tailgate.
Go sit on the bench at the front of Home Depot and wait for some lowlife scumballs to steal the box out of the back of your truck.
Works great for getting rid of old lawnmowers, old TVs, broken furniture, all kinds of stuff.
Empty cereal boxes full of kitty litter left in your shopping cart at the grocery store will disappear fast too.


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## zogger (Dec 23, 2015)

Patrick62 said:


> You guys are gonna roast me for this one...
> 
> I used to burn them. We had quite a pile of them, and cut and split them up and burned them in a stove that had a double wall heat exchanger flue rigged on the thing. 500 cfm fan blew air around about 6ft of the stove pile and was ducted over to a more suitable location to heat the trailer. The system was semi-safe as once a week I would literally ignite a flue fire and burn the pipe clean. Roared like a hoover for about 4 minutes! I know that the heated air was exiting the thing at 400 deg because one time a control relay fell out when the solder melted (yikes).
> 
> ...



bwahahahaha! Oh man, we'd love to see pics of your washing machine saw!


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## Patrick62 (Dec 23, 2015)

This was about 1985 or so, and I think the camera at the time was a 110 instamatic, and I didn't take pictures of the contraption!
It was a hunk of plywood about 2 foot square. With a hole up thru the middle where some L brackets were holding the chainsaw bar. Somehow I managed to get a rim sprocket onto the washer motor that was under the table. Oil was a spritz can for the chain. At 1725 rpm you could just about file the chain while running The power was significant. You could shove a tie thru that thing pretty fast with some chips being thrown in the air. Cutting a typical tie in half was about 10 to 15 seconds.


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## Idahonative (Dec 23, 2015)

@Whitespider will take those off your hands. He says they are full of btu's .


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## Michigan Escapee (Dec 24, 2015)

Idahonative said:


> @Whitespider will take those off your hands. He says they are full of btu's .



Certainly no shortage of them. He'd need a BIG trailer, and probably half a dozen people to load em up. I think both retaining walls were about 2 1/2 feet tall, and about 150 feet long. Not sure how that translates into cordage.


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## peakbagger (Dec 24, 2015)

They are full of btu's. I managed a project to convert an old coal plant to burn wood chips. It was permitted for railroad ties as the local area was full of piles of them rotting in the woods. The plant operators called it rocket fuel, they had to blend it in slow with other wood chips. As long as its burns hot enough there really isn't any significant pollution but definitely not something to try to do at home.


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## JeffGu (Dec 24, 2015)

cantoo said:


> Drive to home depot and park off to the side with your tailgate down and the box sitting at the tailgate.


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## ChoppyChoppy (Dec 24, 2015)

Throw it on Craigslist. A person could just about give away a Husqvarna saw on there even hahaha!


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## olyman (Dec 24, 2015)

peakbagger said:


> They are full of btu's. I managed a project to convert an old coal plant to burn wood chips. It was permitted for railroad ties as the local area was full of piles of them rotting in the woods. The plant operators called it rocket fuel, they had to blend it in slow with other wood chips. As long as its burns hot enough there really isn't any significant pollution but definitely not something to try to do at home.


 your going to have many naysayer leftists on here,,jumping in your case,,,to tell of the great quantitys of carcogenic stuff in them.....................they will be around directly, as soon as the trolls inform them........................................................


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## MDFisherman (Dec 25, 2015)

Horse shoe pits!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## blkcloud (Dec 25, 2015)

Burn em.. Can't be any worse than the tires I burn in my owb...


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## mga (Dec 25, 2015)

zogger said:


> bwahahahaha! Oh man, we'd love to see pics of your washing machine saw!




I second that!!!


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## jwade (Dec 25, 2015)

PULLINmyPOULAN said:


>


good gosh man now thats a corner post. who does your fencing


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## Jere39 (Dec 25, 2015)

I ended up with about 32 of them and stacked them into a backstop for various target practice.


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## hayboy (Dec 25, 2015)

PULLINmyPOULAN said:


> WHERE IS THAT ELEPHANT PEN?


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