Repairing, Replacing and Treating Sleepers

[markjg123]

The sleepers topping a low wall are splitting and rotting. It's a communal garden and we don't want to pay the maintenance fee provided by the factor. What are our options?

1. Repair. Is it even possible?
2. Replace. Where can we buy sleepers?
3. Treat. How do we treat all the existing ones and the other timber used as retainers?

Please see photos.

 

[Deluks]

They're a bit far gone. They may still be able to retain a bed or hold their structure for a couple more years yet, but forget about repair, water will just sit in the holes and they'll rot from within, and there's nothing you could use to keep it out.

New ones are about £25-£30 from a timber merchant.

That last picture looks more like an 8x2 than a sleeper.

 

[markjg123]

They're a bit far gone. They may still be able to retain a bed or hold their structure for a couple more years yet, but forget about repair, water will just sit in the holes and they'll rot from within, and there's nothing you could use to keep it out.

New ones are about £25-£30 from a timber merchant.

That last picture looks more like an 8x2 than a sleeper.

To be honest I'm not sure what type of timber it is. The ground floor flats are well below street level, so rather than have a steep sloped lawn, the developer built a pathway and a couple of gravel terraces as you can see in one of the photos. Various sizes of timber have been used. I've no idea what it is but everything apart from the 'sleepers' is in good condition. I'd like it to stay that way but don't know how to treat it. The 'sleepers' are approximately 9.5 x 2 inches.

 

[Deluks]

The ones in the photos aren't worth spending money on.
The good ones can be treated with a preservative or wood oil.

 

[ericmark]

We find sleepers can need replacing in 5 years, 25 years, or even 50 years, and not a clue why some rot and others don't, all ours covered in coke oven waste, which clearly no longer available as no coke ovens any more. So moving to plastic, they say they will last 100 years, once changed we use one of these to level them up, so swapping sleepers is an expensive job, so worth the extra so it will not need doing again.

You have the same problem, to remove them means digging around them to re-lay them, it is the groundwork which costs, the sleepers compared with work involved are cheap.

I would have used crib lock or something similar it was made by Ruthin pre-cast, but I know we used a fibre mat and old sleepers at Sylfean passing loop/station which also holds back a bank of earth, done during the winter months, it took around 2 months or more with volunteer labour, if one was to look as cost using paid labour it would be massive.

OK, this needs to take the weight of a train, but not that high far side of track shown here down to farmers field, the cost of hiring rollers etc, must have been huge, but now we can run 4 trains at the same time, don't think ever done, as we don't have 4 engines in steam.

But you are looking at many £1000s of pounds, and not really a DIY job unless you have loads of people involved.