In my previous post, ‘How to remove railroad ties without really trying,’ I spoke at length about how sore I was after doing roughly 75% of the job with the wrong set of tools.  And just like yesterday, I’m here to set you straight.

First and foremost, you need to prep your area.  In my case, this meant pulling out my weed whacker and trimming all of the renegade zoysia that had grown over the railroad ties.  Once the area is clear and you can see your target, make sure you have the following tools on hand:

• Work gloves – quite possibly the most important item for the job.  A baseball player who cares about his hands wears a pair of batting gloves to the plate, so why shouldn’t you wear a pair of gloves, too?
• Flat shovel – used for digging a straight line behind the railroad tie.  More on that later, though.
• Prybar/Action bar – the meat and potatoes of the operation.  The prybar is used to work underneath the railroad tie to prop it up for our next essential tool…
• Sledgehammer – the single most important tool for removing these blasted railroad ties.  If you don’t believe me, just try to remove one of these guys from the ground with nothing but your lower back:
  

I’ll explore each of the above mentioned tools for the job in my next post in this series.