Eastern Railroad Discussion > Concrete tie turnouts?

Hello all,

This may be a question better suited for the western board but I'll go with it anyway. Anyone know if there are concrete tie turnouts? Are the mains concrete and then suddnely change to wood for the crossover...etc.. and then back to concrete?

Thanks,
Troy

Yes. Amtrak uses them extensively.

While not a switch, there is a small stretch of concrete ties that I run over. It is at the location of a Wheel Impact Detector, in Pendleton, Indiana. The ties switch from wood to concrete and back no problem. they use rail rail clips instead of the traditional spikes. The stretch is only about 60 feet long. the concrete seems to be a little less forgiving than wood ties, and the engines seem to find every rail imperfection with more pronunciation than on wood ties, which appear to have more "give" in them. That's just my opinion, though, I could be wrong.~~DRLOCO

On the other hand, Metro-North seems to use wooden ties for turnouts on its concrete-tied lines.

the switches at CP235 on New Haven have concrete ties,and so do crossovers at woodlawn CP112, most early high speed switches on Metro-North had wooden ones.

Amtrak uses concrete tie under switches and crossovers in several places between NY and Philly. The first installation was the hig-speed crossovers and switches at SWIFT in Kearny, NJ Works just fine.

You're right, a topic probably better for the Western Board. However, to answer the queston: Concrete tied turnouts are used extensively by both BNSF and UP on their heavily trafficed mains in Nebraska and Wyoming as well as across their systems. I have not heard a lot of comments from crews about them, but TRAINS reported several years ago that UP crews seemed to like them better than wooden ties on the triple track east of North Platte.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

I have noticed that most turnouts use wood ties.
Concrete ties are a standard length, while turnouts use ties of gradually increasing length.
Wood ties can be cut to the reqired length, While I have
never seen concrete ties over the standard length,
such as those found under turnouts and are up to twice as long as a regular tie.The two tracks share the long ties at the turnout.

If anyone knows of a concrete tie manufacturer who makes
extra long concrete ties that could be used in turnouts,
please let me know.

I ran over concrete ties on the KCS between Beaumont, TX and DeQuincy, LA. I couldn't remember any concrete ties at switches. I looked back in my album, and sho' nuff, the ties at the switches were wooden. As far as running over concrete ties, I have over a million miles of running on both, and damned if I could tell any difference from the engineer's seat!

concrete ties are most definately made for turnouts. A set of ties are specially made for a particular number of turnout. Perhaps why there are wooden ties in turnouts on concrete tied lines is because they are more expensive, or perhaps more work is required to replace otherwise good turnouts. Or perhaps it was not economically justifiable to put in concrete tunouts. I occasionally see concrete turnout panels on flatcars enroute from manufacturer to customer.

Nortrack and others make package concrete turnouts, used extensively in many parts of the west. They're a good unit...until there's a derailment...even a small one...can be a costly repair. Wood ties are, of course, more flexable. But concrete is durable. Regardless, they both have their pros and cons. You can find several manufacturers in Railway Age and online.