What sleepers were in use when Mallard set the speed record?

[AndrewE]

Moderator note: split from

Transpennine Route Upgrade and Electrification updates

Well it was suggested in the Manchester - Liverpool Electrification thread that we have a seperate Transpennine thread. Now I know that Manchester - Stalybridge is actually part of the Northern Hub project , but to me, haulage bashing Peaks in the 1970s-1980s - Liverpool-Newcastle was classed as...

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Can it accommodate an increase in linespeed through? 75mph to 90mph I believe is the plan.

what sleepers were in use when Mallard set the speed record, or for the LMS attempt (which didn't wreck their loco?)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2025 ==

I will answer my own (somewhat rhetorical) question:

It seems that after the very early days UK rails were laid almost exclusively on timber sleepers until part-way through WW2, when timber shortages and the need for pit-props and sleepers for reconstructing continental lines after D-Day put the pressure on. Improvements in reinforced-concrete technology after the war made them a success and the rest is history!
So all our main lines and speed records would have been on conventional timber-sleepered track up to the war - and any worries about the ablity of wooden sleepers to cope with trains at 90 mph are completely without foundation (ouch!)

 

[WesternLancer]

Thought this thread might have been about sleeping cars

 

[Gloster]

They would have been either 9’ long, which was the standard length until around 1930, or 8’6”, which was the standard thereafter. The change was because track panels with the shorter ones can fit in the loading gauge when on a wagon. The GWR used Baltic Redwood, but I don’t know if the LNER used the same.

 

[Western 52]

The GWR experimented with steel sleepers, maybe before WW2? There were several locations I think, and some were on what is now the Gwili Railway. Maybe still there?

 

[John Webb]

.....It seems that after the very early days UK rails were laid almost exclusively on timber sleepers until part-way through WW2, when timber shortages and the need for pit-props and sleepers for reconstructing continental lines after D-Day put the pressure on. Improvements in reinforced-concrete technology after the war made them a success and the rest is history!.....

The Building Research Establishment at Garston, just north of Watford, carried out a major investigation into concrete railway sleepers in 1942, including measurements of the the forces acting on sleepers on a main line. This lead to the development of the design of the first prestressed concrete sleepers. (Information from 'Science and Building' by F M Lea, HMSO 1971.)