Railway Tie Association
The Railway Tie Association (RTA) is a trade association in the railroad and rail transit 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, conservation of timber resources, timber processing, wood preservation, 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 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 in New Jersey substituted wood ties for stone due to slow deliveries of stone ties from Sing Sing prison in New York. Hewn wood crossties caught on quickly and were cut from trees along the railroad right-of-way. Tie hackers used a crosssaw and a broadaxe to hand hew railroad ties until they were phased out by sawmills by the early 1940s. The advent of steam power and then gasoline engines 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. The first permanent treating facility began operations in 1848 in Lowell, Massachusetts using alternately bichloride of mercury and chloride of zinc. Tie treatments continue to evolve today with new research and methods. Railroad and aviation engineer Octave Chanute, who was instrumental in the use of preservatives for ties, is credited with the introduction of the date nail 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, creating a burgeoning need for new railroad ties. Every mile of track required about 2,500-3,500 crossties. Trains 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, President Woodrow Wilson created the United States Railroad Administration 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 caused railroads to become bankrupt. During the Great Depression, the Federal Government of the United States again stepped in to control the price of forest products, including wood