Obtaining old ties

I have a cousin who lives near the Pan Am Southern (B&M) main in Athol. He and his wife would like to obtain some old discarded ties for a backyard landscaping project. They don't want to simply take them; even though the ties have been junked they are still railroad property, and I've informed my cousin that he and his family shouldn't be walking near the tracks anyway. So . . . whom should they see or contact?

I'd recommend against using old railway ties for landscaping. If you use the search engine of your choice to find the health risks associated with creosote, the preservative treatment for ties, you may come to the same conclusion. Also, those things are more than heavy. It might cost a bit more, but using landscape timbers would seem a better way to go.

Landscape timbers are treated with copper sulphate or some other preservative these days, some are treated with borox. Creosote is "slightly" poisonous...

JoeF

Not to mention soaked in oil and diesel and whatever else spills out. Stay away from them.

From a landscapers point of view:
-Old ties are heavy, bulky and generally inconvenient to work with. Never minding the creosote that will cover you afterward.
-the looks of treated lumber are personally much preferable to creosoted wood.
-Treated may cost more upfront, but will have a longer lifespan since it wont have already spent 10, 20, 30 years in the ground.

In general treated lumber, or brick, will look much better, with less work and last longer.

If they are dead set on using old ties, here in central Maine they can be purchased from a couple different building supply or hardware stores. But bring a big truck and a couple well built people to move them. Doesnt take more than about 10 ties to put a 3/4 ton pickup well down on the lowest leaf in the spring pack...

I'm not sure if the railroad would want to sell a handful of ties to a private purchaser. Usually railroads sell them in bulk to companies like Home Depot or places that grind them up and do other things with them (such as PAR's in-house operation). I guess you could ask (contact info can be found on PAR's web site) but I don't know how receptive they'd be. They're not going to want you on the right-of-way, so that means they'd have to send out employees to either supervise you or gather the ties and bring them to a safer location. I'm just not sure if that would be worth their time if you're only buying a small quantity of them.