Railway Sleepers

[captainsid]

Hi

I am just in the process of designing my garden and have opted to use sleepers throughout from containing baorders to retaining soil.

The retaining walls will be 7 meters long and 0.8m high.

I want the sleepers to remain as new looking as possible so staining may be
required.

I know that Pine will have 4 straight edges which will help when stacking and are also lighter.

The questions i have is which sleepers would you use Oak or Pine for the retaining wall?

Can you stain Oak once it has weathered into its silver/grey form?

I need to order over 150 so the price difference between a hardwood and softwood is key, however i want to make the right decision for the long term.

Thanks

Sid

 

[Tom JE]

I'm not sure if you have been on http://www.railwaysleeper.com/ or not?

There's some good advice on there regarding treatments etc. Might be worth a look....

 

[r896neo]

you will not be able to lift a reclaimed sleeper on your own however a new softwood one is an easy lift so multiply that by the fact that you will need help for each and every one of your 150 and you may get your own answer.

A happy medium which i use a fair bit are new untreated oak type. These can just about be lifted on your own and are square and smooth making them easier to work with. They are also much more contemporary looking.

Being oak they will last longer than softwood too. decent bit dearer though obviously.

 

[foxhole]

Don't use reclaimed , poisonous to handle. [Children like to climb and then put dirty fingers in mouth.]