I’m going to document laying one of my Llagas Creek switches onto Switchcrafters ties. For those of unfamiliar with Switchcrafters, they make switches with ties of the same kind of compostie material as Trex. The ties are dark brown, and have an exaggerated wood grain carved into them. I’ve had a pair of #8 switches sitting outside all winter, to see how they hold up. They’ve done just fine. I have over a dozen Llagas Creek switches I laid on cedar ties. These, unfortunately, DONT weather a New England winter so well, so I decided to order some #6 tie sets from Switchcrafters, and re-lay the rail. The ties arrived yesterday. The ties are in bags, and my order also came with a template for a #6 left switch. Here you can see the wood grain, and the tie color.
I stripped the old cedar ties off a switch, laid the ties on the template, put the rail down, and moved around some ties. The Llagas switch is about 3" shorter than the Switchcrafters template.
This picture shows how much shorter the Llagas switch is compared to the template.
The ties are hard, so I’ll have to pre-drill each hole. Tedious, but necessary. Glad I have a Dremel.
