I am considering building a small retaining wall using treated sleepers no more than 300mm high. I know that they need to be screwed together but do they require something like a concrete strip foundation or can they simply sit on the ground which is just a thin topsoil layer with clay beneath?
Richard
The car park at a local viewpoint uses two sleeper high walls around it. They are held in place by deep I girders at each end and are simply laid on the ground. From the plaque dedicating the car park, they have probably been in place for about 50 years. The are now rotting, but at the ends, not where they rest on the ground.
50 years ago the sleepers were probably soaked in creosote or covered in tar.
These days what seems to be on sale is some softwood that's seen a few seconds of some water based preservative.
The rail plate marks and bolt holes are visible, so they were definitely re-used railway sleepers.
And decades of toilet waste.
One of our patios was made with a surround of genuine railway sleepers collected from the rail depot. They lasted over 30 years
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