I talked with a couple of old road maintenance workers and asked them what kind of sleeper they felt most relieved after working for so many years. The answer is the same: corrosion resistant wooden sleeper.
No high-tech, no fancy, just an oil-soaked pine. But it's really down to earth.
Pine wood used as sleeper is an old tradition. Pine trees grow fast, with enough material and straight texture, which is easy to process. However, wood has some defects, such as being afraid of corrosion, insect and damp. If it is directly buried in the ballast without treatment, it will be rotten into slag within a few years.
Therefore, it shall be immersed in oil.
In fact, the process is not complicated. Put the pine into the sealed anti-corrosion tank, and apply pressure to immerse the anti-corrosion oil into the wood. Once the high temperature and high pressure are connected, the oil will seep into the fiber pipe of the wood. Generally, the immersion depth is more than 13mm, which is equivalent to that the entire wood has absorbed the anti-corrosion oil from the outside to the inside. Thus, mildew and borers are basically of no interest.
The treated sleepers shall be laid on the line. I'm afraid of wind and rain. The sticky plum rain in the south might have caused problems with other materials, and the oil-immersed sleepers could hold it. The northern winter is so cold that it is not afraid. Anyway, it's tough, working hard.
Don't worry about it.
Railway maintenance has a very practical problem: long line and many sleepers. You can't expect every one to be good, and some to be bad. At this time, the advantage of the anti-corrosion wooden sleeper comes out - it takes half an hour before and after a broken one is pulled out and a new one is put in. No delay in normal operation and no notice to neighbors.
Sleepers of some materials are not like this, and a broken one may be connected to a large area. The process is cumbersome and the line must be blocked. The maintenance workers were afraid of this kind of thing, and they had planned to go home for dinner after work in the afternoon, but it turned out to be half night.
Wooden sleepers don't give you this set. If it is bad enough to be honest, it is bad for itself, and never encumbers others.
It is also possible that many people have never thought that it is very convenient to adjust the rail position with wooden sleepers. The track gauge shall be slightly adjusted and the spike shall be moved after a long time of operation. Wooden, the spike hammer went in as soon as I hit it. I pulled it out and nailed it in a wrong place. I could solve it on site.
If you change to a concrete sleeper, you need to move a nail on the electric drill, and use a bushing. It takes time and effort to operate a set. By the wooden sleeper side, the teacher Fu took the hammer to see two eyes, and it was finished in a few times. This flexibility is really practical in routine maintenance, and the frequency of line adjustment is much higher than the outsiders think.
Some people may think that wooden sleeper is too "earth". How is it still used with such developed technology? But you can see from the site that it is generally well evaluated by front-line workers. It is not because of what feelings, but because it is easy to use, easy to do and not bother people.
An oil-soaked pine sleeper, laid on the road without any sound for more than ten years. The train weighed dozens of tons and it proceeded; Crushed stone ballast is impacted; Exposed to the sun in the summer and frozen in the winter, it is the same. No sense of presence, but nothing wrong.
The maintainer cannot think too much when he steps on it while patrolling. That's right – something really commonly used is not supposed to worry.
