In our daily lives, we often see wooden sleepers used, whether on railways or parks and green spaces, these sleepers play a supporting and protective role. To prevent corrosion and increase the service life of sleepers, anti-corrosion treatment is usually applied. The two most common methods are applying anti-corrosion oil and oil immersion treatment. There is a significant difference between these two anti-corrosion methods, particularly in terms of cost, effectiveness, and lifespan.

But distinguishing between sleepers coated with anti-corrosion oil and those treated with oil immersion is not an easy task.

First, look with your eyes, which can be distinguished by observing the surface of the sleepers. The surface of sleepers coated with anti-corrosion oil usually appears more glossy, similar to the feeling of being painted. Relatively speaking, the color and texture of the surface will be more uniform, while the surface of anti-corrosion sleepers treated with oil may show irregular colors and textures, because oil immersion treatment involves soaking anti-corrosion oil into the interior of the wood, and the color and surface of the surface may not be very uniform.

If you can't tell anything by looking at the color, we can check if there are any scratches on the surface of the sleepers. This is a very important judgment method, because when producing high-quality anti-corrosion sleepers, the manufacturer will perform a scratch treatment on the surface of the sleepers in advance in order to allow the anti-corrosion oil to penetrate deeper into the interior of the sleepers. And the painted sleepers basically do not have this process, and even if they are oil immersed anti-corrosion sleepers, if they are not scratched, the quality will be slightly inferior to the scratched anti-corrosion sleepers. Of course, some manufacturers may even make scratches before painting in order to forge something more like it.

So, in cases where there are scratches, we can use a more straightforward approach - drilling sampling, cross-sectional inspection. The so-called drilling sampling is to randomly select a position on the sleeper, use a tool to drill a small hole, and see what kind of wood chips are drilled out. The wood chips in the color of the logs indicate that they were painted, as the interior of the wood cannot be painted. If the color of the wood chips is close to the surface color of the sleepers and appears brownish black, it can be basically concluded that they are oil immersed sleepers.

Through these simple methods, we can roughly distinguish between sleepers coated with anti-corrosion oil and those treated with oil immersion. Of course, these methods also need to be distinguished based on actual situations, as some sleepers may undergo multiple anti-corrosion treatments, or environmental factors may also affect the appearance and texture of the sleepers. I hope these methods can help everyone better understand the anti-corrosion treatment of sleepers, protect and extend their service life.