Railroad ties - Trains Magazine

The reason that there is such a widely held belief in the exaggerated hazard of creosote is that the news media is constantly promoting that view along with all their other hazards and tragedies.  If I am not mistaken, creosote has been banned from retail sale to the public, so this adds to the perception of the creosote hazard.  About 15 years ago, I had to get rid of a bunch of ties that I had torn out of a retaining wall.  Lots of people told me that they would be considered toxic waste, and would be very hard to dispose of.  This was common knowledge even then, but it was incorrect nevertheless.  I called the garbage collector, and they just came out for a special pickup, and took them to the landfill for the normal rate.

If I were considering the use of ties to build a retaining wall, I would worry about the longevity.  There is an attraction with ties if they are free, but you still have to load, transport, unload, and place them, so the labor component is sky high.  If I were going to build a timber retaining wall that I expected to last long enough to justify the labor, I would use .6 CCA treated timber.  Then I would know that I would only need to build the wall once.  If you are building a wall on a property that you plan to sell, then longevity might not be an issue.  However, due to the universal misinformation, you can bet that any prospective buyer is going to question of the safety of the wall if it contains creosote.