Concrete sleeper

A concrete sleeper is a type of railway sleeper made out of steel reinforced concrete.

In 1877, Joseph Monier, a French gardener, suggested that concrete reinforced with steel could be used for making sleepers for railway track. Monier designed a sleeper and obtained a patent for it, but it was not successful.

Concrete sleepers were first used on the Alford and Sutton Tramway in 1884. Their first use on a main line railway was by the Reading Company in America in 1896, as recorded by AREA Proceedings at the time. Designs were further developed and the railways of Austria and Italy used the first concrete sleepers around the turn of the 20th century. This was closely followed by other European railways.

Major progress was not achieved until World War II, when the timbers used for sleepers were scarce due to competition from other uses, such as mines. Following research carried out on French and other European railways, the modern pre-stressed concrete sleeper was developed. Heavier rail sections and long welded rails were also being installed, requiring higher-quality sleepers. These conditions spurred the development of concrete sleepers in France, Germany and Britain, where the technology was perfected.

The 1 ft 11 ¹⁄₂ in (597 mm) gauge Lynton and Barnstaple Railway (1898 to 1935) in North Devon, experimented with concrete sleepers at a number of locations along the line. As the sleepers were cast to gauge, they were of little use outside the station areas on this very curvaceous line where gauge slackening was commonly required. They were also noisy and lacked the elasticity of wooden sleepers creating a very rigid road. Some of those concrete sleepers can now be seen on display at Woody Bay Station.

Interest in concrete railway sleepers increased after World War II following advances in the design, quality and production of pre-stressed concrete.

Chaired bullhead concrete sleepers have been around since at least the 1940s; the Great Western using a two-holed chair, thus saving both scarce wartime timber and steel fixing bolts. This design was used by the government-run railways during World War II and in particular immediately prior to D-Day when timber was scarce and track extension or replacement was urgently required. Gravesend West Street station was thus relaid in 1944 to enable the huge increase in freight to be handled.

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