In an “About Town” last winter, you mentioned local farmers making railroad ties. What was that about?
By November, Ridgefield’s farmers in the 18th and 19th Centuries were finishing with their crops, and turning to tasks they didn’t have time for during the growing season. These included repairing buildings and equipment, gathering and cutting firewood, and fixing fences.
Many also had “side jobs” to earn extra money. Some, for instance, worked as cobblers in the winter, making shoes for big and small companies (as well as their own families).
Some Ridgefield farmers made railroad ties.
The great expansion of the American railroads in the mid- to late-19th Century required a huge number of ties. Some 3,000 are used for each mile of track. Millions were needed, not only for new lines being laid but also to replace ties that rotted. (Depending on environment, ties might survive only a few years; today, treated with creosote, they can last 30 to 40 years.)
In 1850, there were 9,000 miles of track, mostly east of the Mississippi. Forty years later, more than 160,000 miles were in use, requiring nearly a half billion ties. In 1890, railroad ties were the largest single use of wood in America.
Farmers who owned some woodland could earn extra income by cutting trees, especially chestnut and oak, and turning them into ties.
Until the 1940s most railroad ties were hand-hewn by men working in pairs. Straight hardwood trees that were not too wide — around a foot across — were felled and cut into eight-foot, six-inch lengths. According to the diary of Jared Nash, a record of a Ridgefield farmer in the 1860s, these were often locally called “sticks.”
To work on a tie, the wood was placed at right angles on a pair of logs to raise it off the ground. Bark was peeled off with a barking spud, a tool that looked something like a shovel. The workers snapped or marked a line down the log to delineate where each side would be; this was called the “cut line.”
Then, using a felling ax, a worker would chop into the side of the log about once every six or eight inches; the cut would be only as deep as the line that had been scored for the side, a process called “cutting to the score.”
Once the side had been scored, the worker could use a broadax to walk down the side of the log, chipping away the scored pieces. This was called “hewing to the line.”
The result was a rectangular tie.
More than 90% of ties in America are still wood; the rest are concrete, steel, or composite plastic — substances much more commonly used in Europe.