The Railway Tie Association (RTA) is a trade association in the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

and

rail transit Urban rail transit is an all-encompassing term for various types of local rail systems providing passenger service within and around urban or suburban areas. The set of urban rail systems can be roughly subdivided into the following categories, ...

industry. The purpose of the RTA is to promote the economical and environmentally sound use of wood crossties. The RTA is involved in research into crosstie design and ongoing activities dealing with sound

forest management Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for ...

, conservation of timber resources, timber processing,

wood preservation Wood easily degrades without sufficient preservation. Apart from structural wood preservation measures, there are a number of different chemical preservatives and processes (also known as "timber treatment", "lumber treatment" or "pressure treat ...

, environmentally sound used tie disposal, and safety of industry workers. The Association's mission statement is: "Our mission since 1919 has been to ensure that the engineered wood crosstie system continues to evolve and improve in order to remain cost-effective and to meet the ever-changing requirements of track systems around the world."

History

Early railroads

The first railroads in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

were constructed in the early 1830s. These railroads mounted track made of strips of iron secured to wood stringers onto stone blocks. The first recorded use of wood railroad ties is in 1832 when Robert Stevens, president of the

Camden and Amboy Railroad The United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company (UNJ&CC) was a railroad company which began as the important Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A), whose 1830 lineage began as one of the eight or ten earliest permanent North AmericanList of Earliest Am ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

substituted wood ties for stone due to slow deliveries of stone ties from

Sing Sing Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of ...

prison in New York. Hewn wood crossties caught on quickly and were cut from trees along the railroad

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

. Tie hackers used a crosssaw and a broadaxe to hand hew railroad ties until they were phased out by

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

s by the early 1940s.Webster, Paul D. (1991). A 100 Year Success Story: The Wood Crosstie. Gulf Shores, Alabama: The Railway Tie Association The advent of

steam power A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

and then

gasoline engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ''E ...

s allowed sawmills to operate efficiently and on site as needed making tie hacking obsolete over time.

Pressure treatment

The crosstie industry began to employ pressure treating as a means of prolonging tie life beginning in the mid-1800s. The first crossties were treated in 1838 with an infusion of bichloride of mercury and laid on the Northern Central railroad in Maryland.American Wood Preservers Association (1916) Handbook on Wood Preservation Available from Amazon.com The first permanent treating facility began operations in 1848 in

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...

using alternately

bichloride of mercury Mercury(II) chloride (or mercury bichloride, mercury dichloride), historically also known as sulema or corrosive sublimate, is the inorganic chemical compound of mercury and chlorine with the formula HgCl2. It is white crystalline solid and is a ...

and chloride of zinc. Tie treatments continue to evolve today with new research and methods. Railroad and aviation engineer

Octave Chanute Octave Chanute (February 18, 1832 – November 23, 1910) was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided many budding enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers, with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying ...

, who was instrumental in the use of preservatives for ties, is credited with the introduction of the

date nail Date nails were tagging devices utilized by railroads and utility companies to visually identify the age of railroad ties or utility poles. Octave Chanute, railroad and aviation pioneer, is credited with the idea for using date nails as a way of ...

to keep track of the life of treated railroad ties in track.

The Tie Industry

Railroad development kept pace with the expanding frontier in the United States after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, creating a burgeoning need for new railroad ties. Every mile of track required about 2,500-3,500 crossties.

Train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

s became heavier and faster and the railroads found it was less expensive to add more ties per mile than to buy heavier rail. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

created the

United States Railroad Administration The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalisation, nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1, 1920. It was the largest American experiment with nationalization, and ...

to support the financially weak railroad industry. The USRA took control of pricing and standardization of crosstie sizes. Following World War I, tie demand contracted as railroads consolidated lines, used more preserved wood ties, and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

caused railroads to become bankrupt. During the Great Depression, the

Federal Government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

again stepped in to control the price of forest products, including wood ties. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, tie demand rose again as the war effort created a need for more track and thus more ties. Tie demand has seen its share of ebb and flow, but remains fairly constant as ties come to the end of their useful life in track and are retired to other uses.

Foundation of the Association

The RTA was founded in St. Louis, Missouri in 1919 as the National Association of Railroad Tie Producers. The first annual meeting for the association was held at the Hotel Statler in St. Louis on January 30 and 31, 1919. John W. Fristoe was the first president. In his inaugural speech he stated, "I hope that you gentlemen will succeed in forming your organization; that when it is formed, the first effort you make will be to develop economies; not how to get more for your stock, but how to produce it for less. How to pay your labor well, how they may derive a part of it...We have got to get down to the simplest form of business in which the producer comes closest to the consumer, and in that way wipe out unnecessary expenses." The Association still values these same ideals. The name was changed on July 26, 1932 to The Railway Tie Association.

Committees

At the beginning of 2013 the RTA had the following active committees: * Committee for Legislative & Environmental Affairs Response (CLEAR) * Education Committee * Executive Committee * Manufacturing Safety & Material Handling * Research and Development * Tie Disposal Task Force (Subcommittee to R&D)

Activities

In 2012, the RTA added a members only section to its website where members can interact with each other during the year. Members use this area to discuss market trends, manufacturing and safety, Legislative action, news, education, environmental and recycling concerns, product questions, and offer things for sale or trade.

Meetings

In or around October, the RTA holds a Symposium and Technical Conference. Around 300 people attend the annual Conference. In the spring The RTA conducts a Field Trip to various industry-specific sites to help members better understand different aspects of the wood crosstie industry. In the summer The RTA holds a Tie Grading Seminar dedicated to member education about wood crosstie specifications. In March, the RTA participates in the annual Railroad Day on Capitol Hill event with the

American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) is an association of North American short line and regional railroads. Founded in 1913, the ASLRRA has a range of members, include a variety of Class II and Class III railroads. T ...

, the

Association of American Railroads The Association of American Railroads (AAR) is an industry trade group representing primarily the major freight Rail transport, railroads of North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States). Amtrak and some regional Commuter rail in North Am ...

, and the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association.

Scholarships

The RTA offers two

scholarships A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarshi ...

to college students enrolled in Forestry programs accredited by The

Society of American Foresters The Society of American Foresters (SAF) is a professional organization representing the forestry industry in the United States. Its mission statement declares that it seeks to "advance the science, education, and practice of forestry; to enhance t ...

. The submission deadline is 30 June each year.

Industry recommended practices and publications

The RTA publishes industry specifications and news on its website and in hard copies available to the public and in various railroad industry publications. The RTA publishes the bi-monthly magazine titled ''Crossties'' which covers all aspects of the wood crosstie industry ''The Tie Guide'' in English and Spanish which offers specification and treatment information, and The ''Tie Specifications'' booklet for quick reference.

Ongoing research

The RTA partners with organizations such as the

' subsidiary Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI),

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

, American Wood Protection Association, and others to conduct ongoing research into processes intended to extend the life of wood railroad ties.National Research Council (U.S.) Railroad Research Information Service, United States, Federal Railroad Administration (1973) National Academies

References

External links

Official website
{{Construction overview Railway associations Transportation organizations based in the United States Transport industry associations Construction organizations