Horrible railway sleepers

[Scottishgymnast]

Any thoughts on how I might improve the look of this - photo below hopefully.

Can I paint/stain the sleepers?

The sleepers only look so bad because of the contrast with the really odd browny fence above it. Personally, I prefer the look of the sleepers to the fence!

Wood should look like wood IMO. Not like plastic.

You can paint them mine are sage green, but if the black colouring on them is tar/oil because they're genuine old sleepers then you may struggle unless you sand the surface down first.

I'd power wash the sleepers and paint the other bit of fence white or black.

Agree with Queen - the sleepers are find but the fence looks bad.

Agree with the others, you don't have a sleeper problem, you have a fence problem.

Depends how old they are. Genuine old sleepers are impregnated with creosote, which is toxic, and oozes out black tarry juice.

Yours have no apparent holes in them, and look sharp and square, so they are probably a modern replica made for safe garden use. It looks like they are acting as a retaining wall so don't remove them or the edge of the garden will collapse.

You could paint or blast them, but is there any point?

Your fence looks like it is treated with a waxy stain. You could re-coat it in black or a very dark brown, or other colour (green over brown goes very dark) to blend in with the sleepers.

You could plant something to tumble over the side if you wanted.