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January typically is a slow month for crosstie suppliers, but January 2007 was an exception. Tie purchases totaled 1.9 million units, a 24 percent increase compared with January 2006 and 17 percent increase compared with December’s total, according to the Railway Tie Association.

Tie production held steady at 1.6 million units while inventories decreased 1.7 percent to 16.4 million units and the inventory-to-sales ratio dropped to 0.75 compared with January 2006’s 0.83.

Twelve-month rolling totals show purchases totaling 21.7 million units and production totaling 22.3 million units.