CONCRETE SLEEPERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 3

CONCRETE SLEEPERS

MANUFACTURE IN BRITAIN Concrete sleepers are being tried out to replace some of the 3,000,000 timber sleepers which the railways in Great Britain need each year to maintain their tracks in good condition. Usually these timber sleepers are "bought from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, Canada, and Australia. Experiments with concrete sleepers were made as long as 25 years ago, and have been continued at intervals without very satisfactory results. Now, with many sources of timber supplies closed by the war, and the need to save shipping space, concrete sleepers are being tried out again. Generally the use of concrete sleepers is being confined to Sidings, mar-

shalling yards, and branch lines—places where high speeds are not required. However, one company is shortly to make tests on a section of main line. Because full-length concrete sleepers have been found to devlop defects under traffic, attention has recently been turned to of concrete blocks

either “ tied ” together to keep the gauge correct or interspersed with wooden sleepers. One railway is using 36,000 pairs of such blocks, and by the beginning of next year the output will be at the rate of 70,000 I pairs a year. In some centres women are em- ’ ployed in making the blocks.