Railway Sleepers

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SLEEPERS

Sleepers

Sleepers of all kinds are what we are talking about here for railway sleepers either new or reclaimed railway sleepers have become very popular in recent years in garden landscaping hence some people call them garden sleepers or garden railway sleepers. I guess the use of railway sleepers in the garden started in the 1960’s with the Dr. Beeching closures when perhaps at this early development stage in garden railway sleepers people would use reclaimed railway sleepers for building bridges across ditches in their gardens and also occasionally use sleepers to hold up or retain soil where there was perhaps a change of level or it was designed to create terracing in the garden so this is perhaps the start of garden sleepers being used. Since then all sorts of alternative uses for railway sleepers in the garden have been developed of course later with the popularity of garden design growing and over the last few years with the growth in garden make over programmes like Ground Force the use of sleepers in the garden became popularised with many example projects being shown on the TV.

Garden Railway Sleepers

So what can you use railway sleepers for in the garden? Well sleepers can be used for almost anything the only limit is your imagination in essence sleepers are a substantial and strong piece of timber with some sleepers being very durable in terms of ground contact so will last for many years. It should be remembered that when sleepers are used in their original application the sleepers are laid on a well drained gravel bed this is not the case in most gardens so with most garden sleepers it is prudent to think about the preservation of the timber. How durable your garden railways sleepers will depend on the type of railways sleepers that you purchase. Potentially the most durable sleeper is the reclaimed hardwood railway sleeper followed by the hardwood new railway sleeper which is untreated and finally the treated softwood new railway sleeper. The life expectancy of your treated softwood railway sleeper will very much depend upon the quality of the treatment and also the application, will the timber constantly be wet in ground contact and wet and in terms of the project it is used in will the sleeper have been cut exposing its untreated core.

AVS Fencing now sell a user class 4 for UC4 railway sleeper which has a 15-year guarantee so with this type of sleeper you can be assured that you will get a great life expectancy from your garden sleeper. Reclaimed railway sleepers use creosote as a preservative medium. Creosoted sleepers are not banned in most situations and neither are they hazardous if used following some basic guidelines. The basic guide lines for the use of reclaimed sleepers is that they should not be used in a position where there is a frequent risk of skin contact well of course fortunately because the creosote treatment is generally a detrimental to clothing most people will not consider using reclaimed sleepers for seating etc. this means if you want to create benches and seats in your garden you should consider using the new oak railway sleepers as these are untreated and can also can be cut, carved and scalloped without impacting on the treatment.

A little word of caution about the weight of sleepers the hardwood sleepers are the heaviest weighing approximately 50Kg each therefore proper consideration should be given to the manual handling of the sleepers when planning to use them for garden projects and enough experienced labour resources should be planned for to manoeuvre the sleepers into position in your garden project. Softwood sleepers have the advantage of being the lightest; this is supported by the fact that some softwood sleepers are smaller in size. So whatever your requirements for garden railway sleepers whether it be reclaimed railway sleepers or new railway sleepers either oak or treated softwood I think you can see that AVS has the garden sleepers for you.