[M&M Land]

I have a customer that is replacing a railroad tie retaining wall. They would like me to use a wall stone to do the job and I was wondering if anyone had any input as to what stone would work best. The wall is 82' long and 5' high. It is a load bearing wall that boarders their driveway. It's a streight wall that has a slight angle on each end.

[Stonehenge]

When you say wall stone do you mean natural stone or a man-made product?

One thing that's jumping up as a red flag for me is that this is holding a driveway and that the driveway is alongside the wall and is 5' tall. If you're using any kind of man-made product, you're going to need geogrid, and if you need geogrid, the wall is either going to need to be far enough away from the drive for you to excavate back for the grid, or you're going to need to tear up the drive.

Otherwise, that wall may be spilling over itself in a few years.

However, if it's natural stone and there's enough room, you may be able to use stones massive enough to not need any additional tieback.

[M&M Land]

I should have been clear, I'm sorry. The driveway is at the base of the wall, so the driveway runs along the wall, not above it. Man made wall stone will be used.

[Stonehenge]

Ah. Ok - you mention that it's load bearing. What's on the top side of the wall? Just dirt, or is there a structure of some kind?

[M&M Land]

Just Dirt and some burining bushes. About ten feet back are some large evergreens.

[Stonehenge]

Then I'd think you could use pretty much any block you wanted. You'll likely want block that go 12" deep (the smaller block aren't really made for big walls), and because of the height of the wall you'll still need geogrid, but getting help on that from the mfg of the block is usually pretty easy.