What happened to the red oak market?

[Trackerbuddy]

Whoever their buyer is specs one sound centered boxed heart per tie so one log one tie.  Cannot be double hearted.. That would pay 3common.

Well I learned something new, again.  Thanks for informing me.  The centered pith explains why they have so much "tie siding" to get rid of.  Some of it is grade lumber the rest is sold in bundles for $300/mbf.  

[mike_belben]

Theres a few free PDF documents out there for railroad tie specs and standards if youre ever interested.  The clif notes are straight, centered box single heart, no shake, and oak preferred, ideally white oak.. . 9s, 12s, 14s and 16s with 3" trim minimum. The 16s are best $/bf and are called a switch tie.  Always try to make a switch tie from your small rough oaks.  Needs to be 13" dib small end for a switch.  And very straight with min 6" trim. 

[Ron Wenrich]

A 10' switch tie was always worth more by cutting it back to an 8'6" tie.  The problem with switch ties are they don't take them all the time.  The only steady market we had was for 23' switch ties.  Not many mills were interested in cutting them.  Cutting the side cuts into saleable lumber always took a lot of time.  We also ran a vertical edger, which helped.  Production seemed slow, but the footage ramped up pretty quickly.

[mike_belben]

If i brought a log below 9'3" it automatically went to a 3common price, about 20% below tie.