Not that I want to see ties go concrete ..But, what prevents the realroaders (my term for 1:1 layouts) form having concrete ties under switches ? Saw it again today from Figueroa st. bridge in Los Angeles ..Brand new panel switch (t.O.) on wood. I'd think they would produce the necessary switch ties in concrete by now..Just a curiosity.. Blows me away though the way it looks down there like an HO/N Atlas switch you could just reach down and grab..I just recently learned that switches are panel-made most the time, not constructed at the site !
They exist in certain places, mostly in Europe or Japan, and mostly seen on high speed rail or transit lines. Regular concrete ties are relatively cheap to manufacture because they can be mass-produced using identically-sized forms. But concrete switch ties need to be manufactured at various sizes, and cannot be mass-produced as easily as the regular ties (which are all made to identical dimensions).
Where the UP has installed concrete ties in my area, they have also gone to concrete ties for the switches. Both for high speed, powered turnouts for crossovers and sidings and low speed hand throw turnouts to industry tracks. When they installed new powered crossovers and CTC on the former CNW double track, the new crossovers were built with concrete ties even though the main tracks otherwise still had wood ties. Switches with the concrete ties are built on site, then slid into place.
