Wiktionary
alt. (context rail transport US English) A heavy, preserved piece of hewn timber laid crossways to and supporting the rails of a railroad or a member of similar shape and function of another material such as concrete. n. (context rail transport US English) A heavy, preserved piece of hewn timber laid crossways to and supporting the rails of a railroad or a member of similar shape and function of another material such as concrete.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A railroad tie/railway tie/crosstie ( North America) or railway sleeper ( British Isles and Australasia) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties transfer loads to the track ballast and subgrade, hold the rails upright and keep them spaced to the correct gauge.
Railroad ties are traditionally made of wood, but pre-stressed concrete is now also widely used, especially in Europe and Asia. Steel ties are common on secondary lines in the UK; plastic composite ties are also employed, although far less than wood or concrete. As of January 2008, the approximate market share in North America for traditional and wood ties was 91.5%, the remainder being concrete, steel, azobé (red ironwood) and plastic composite.
Up to 3,000 ties are used per mile of railroad track in the US, 2,640 per mile (30 per 60 ft rail) on main lines in the UK. Rails in the US may be fastened to the tie by a railroad spike; iron/steel baseplates screwed to the tie and secured to the rail by a proprietary fastening system such as a Vossloh or Pandrol are commonly used in Europe.
Usage examples of "railroad tie".
Even an occasional railroad tie could be distinguished on the weed strewn track bed.
Suddenly he was beside it and his toe stumbled against the end of a railroad tie.
On the way my toe struck something in the snow, and when I kicked the snow away I saw that it was a broken railroad tie.
They stayed in a screen of trees as they came up the drive, then broke across an open space to a lilac bush, paused to adjust their holds on the railroad tie.
He leveled a railroad tie with his first rush (it must have been a good one.
Without giving herself time to think about how high above the ground on the other side it might be, she grasped the bottom edge of the frame and hauled herself through, jumping into the darkness and hoping she didn't kill herself on a railroad tie or something.
With her son Eliu, her gigantic lover, Claudio Garcia, and a roly-poly hillbilly mechanic named Marvin LaBlue, she lived in a mud-plastered railroad tie house situated on a hill overlooking the Body Shop and Pipe Queen, an enterprise inherited from her first husband, a charismatic hustler named Ray Mingleback, who had drowned on Hal-loween night, 1958, when his Rolls Royce dove off the north-south highway into the Rio Grande about twenty miles below Chamisaville.
By straining until his muscles ached, Frank stretched his bound wrists to where he could dimly see a spike protruding from a railroad tie.
Looking below, he saw his Plainsman, near where his rope had been secured to a railroad tie, and realized he was about to die without it.
The organism is part of the species as a railroad tie might be said to be part of a railroad as seen by an observer on a train, the observer being always in now—.