The high maintenance cost and scarcity of the hardwood timber promote alternative technologies for replacing the timber railway sleepers. The advantages of composites in high strength-to-weight ratio, durability, reliability, longer life and less maintenance are of great interest for their application in railway sleepers. This study investigated the performance of an innovative composite railway sleeper manufactured from sandwich panels and bonded with the epoxy polymer matrix. The performance including rail-seat vertical load, centre bending moment, shear strength, screw holding capacity and electrical resistance have been investigated and compared with the timber sleepers. Results showed that the new composite sleeper can maintain the minimum performance requirements and showed a very similar behaviour to the timber ones. This innovative composite technology could be a suitable replacement to the existing timber sleepers
