Patented Railroad Ties?
March 5, 2004 PM/School
The San Jose train station is currently undergoing renovation. The old wooden rail road ties had been replaced a week ago with new concrete ones. I was waiting for my train, just looking down at the tracks when I noticed the writing on the new ties. They're patented if you can believe it. Truely, one can patent anything.
Looks like Patent number 5,104,089? Its written in the center of the tie. I added a larger inset of the writing itself with more contrast.
Bummer, a little hunting reveals patent 5,104,089 is not a patent on railroad ties at all, but rather a patent for a concrete pouring form system. So much for the punchline.
A quick search on Google and it looks like this patent expired in 2000 for failure to pay maintenance fees. This sort of puts the trivial in trivia doesn't it? More than you ever wanted to know about concrete railroad ties, huh?