Railway sleepers - Where and what do the French call them?

Gardening
1

Hi All,

Looking to sort our driveway banking out with railway sleepers (or equivalent).

Where would the French buy such items and what are they called in French?

Cheers
Carl

2

Traverses de chemin de fer

3

Watch out, they can be very Creosoty which one doesn’t notice until it warms up in summer.

4

At least they won’t rot (quickly)

5

But creosote is highly toxic if it leaches out into the soil. New old sleepers don’t have that problem, but are not cheap. Round our way it is far cheaper to use stone, and several local terrassement firms that do retaining bunds or banking.

6

Wagons-Lits.

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7

I was under the impression that it was now illegal to sell creosote impregnated railway sleepers, and they had been removed from all public sale outlets, including ex-SNCF surplus/used, etc. They appear to have been replaced, at least for domestic use, by another type of wood that is so dense it can not be impregnated with creosote, cf. here

Seems I was right:
http://robindesbois.org/category/balisage/dechets/traverses-et-autres-bois-traites/

http://robindesbois.org/wp-content/uploads/arrete-creosote-dec2018.pdf

8

what a fascinating link, Alex… lots of info on all sorts of wooden ideas… :relaxed: :relaxed:

9

image :wink: :wink:

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10

It often takes a year or so for these sorts of interdictions to become normal practice. Small local firms will want to flog off their stock first. Luckily not many left as they stopped being produced.

Also local people may still have them to hand. The year we arrived here a neighbour started to fence his land using old creosote sleepers as the posts - extremely ugly too. A couple of local people protested as watercourse runs across the bottom of his land. So the rest of the sleepers have sat in his field since…but pop up here and there round other bits of land, or as banking. He will continue to use them, and flog them to his mates, until they are gone.

11

Yes, we seem to have a couple propping up the back of our compost heap…the former owners accidentally forgot to mention to us :wink: I spent a while actually looking to buy some to make a boulodrome, but as they were already becoming increasingly scarce, gave that idea up. Perhaps azobe wood is the solution after all…

12

The smell will also clear your sinuses, like with Draino :scream:

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