USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 19
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Many of these railroads could not have been built if our protective tariff policy had not built up our iron-rail industry in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and our steel-rail industry in the fourth quarter. Until
THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL RAILS. 203
we began to make our own iron rails and afterwards our own steel rails foreign manufacturers charged us excessive prices for such rails as we could afford to buy. Both of the rail industries mentioned had at the first to struggle for their very existence against active foreign competition, the early tariff duties on iron rails and afterwards on steel rails not being sufficiently protective, but in the end the control of the home market was gained, the produc- tion of rails increased enormously, and the prices of both iron and steel rails to railroad companies were greatly re- duced. Before we began to make our own steel rails Eng- lish manufacturers charged us more than three times as much per ton for the steel rails we bought from them as American manufacturers have since charged for millions of tons. These millions of tons of steel rails have been sold at lower prices than were previously charged for iron rails. In an argument presented to the Ways and Means Com- mittee of the House of Representatives, at Washington, on February 3, 1880, Mr. H. V. Poor gave the price of steel rails in British ports in 1863 as 369 shillings per ton, or $89.79. Ten years later, in 1873, the price of British steel rails in British ports was 350 shillings per ton, or $85.15. Ten years later, in 1883, the average price of steel rails in this country was $37.75 per ton, and since that year mill- ions of tons of steel rails have been made and sold in this country at less than $28 per ton, which price exactly cor- responds with the amount of the duty on steel rails that was imposed in the Schenck tariff of 1870, a duty which firmly established the steel-rail industry in our country.
The resisting and wearing qualities of a steel rail be- ing much superior to those of an iron rail it is capable of supporting a much heavier weight of cars and locomo- tives, a much heavier tonnage of freight, and many more passengers, and it permits trains to be moved at a greater rate of speed. The carrying capacity of our railroads has been increased many times by the use of steel rails, and the cost of operating them per ton of freight carried or per passenger has been greatly decreased. The life of a steel rail being many times greater than that of an iron rail, notwithstanding the greater service it is called upon
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to perform, it can easily be seen that the cost to our railroad companies for renewals of track must be many times less than if iron rails were still used and sold even at the low price now paid for steel rails.
In ten years after we began the manufacture of steel rails in commercial quantities, which was in 1867, the charge for carrying a bushel of wheat by railroad from Chicago to New York was reduced from 44.2 cents a bushel to 20.3 cents, and it has since been further reduced to 8.47 cents. In 1860, using only iron rails, the charge for moving a ton of freight one mile on the New York Central Railroad was 2.065 cents ; in 1870, after we had commenced to use steel rails, the. charge was reduced to 1.884 cents ; in 1880, when steel rails were in more general use, the charge was further reduced to 8.79 mills; and in 1901 it was still further reduced to 7.4 mills. In the decade from 1870 to 1880 the charge for transporting a barrel of flour from Chicago to New York by rail fell from $1.60 to 86 cents. In 1903 the freight rate on flour over the Pennsyl- vania Railroad system in carload lots from Chicago to New York was 36 cents per barrel.
In The Story of a Grain of Wheat, by William C. Ed- gar, of Minneapolis, the indebtedness of the farmers of our country to the railroads is frankly acknowledged in terms that corroborate all that has been above stated. He says :
" While the agriculturists of the United States have sowed and reaped, and its millers have advanced with the progress of wheat-growing, both would have been unable to attain the strong position they now occupy in the world's markets had it not been for the co-operation of the inland and ocean carriers. It must be admitted that the great expansion of the railways of the country and the steady reduction in freight rates, accomplished by an increase of facilities for moving the traffic economically, have been the great factors in the upbuilding of the export trade in wheat and flour. The people of no other wheat-growing nation have been favored by as low rates of freight as the Americans. The railroad of the West extended its rails into promising fields as soon as, and more often before, their freight-producing capacity was known.
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" In 1871, when the true quality of spring wheat was discovered, the railroads in the United States operated 44,600 miles ; in 1897 181,000 miles were in operation. The reduction in the rate of freight per ton per mile has more than kept pace with the increase in mileage ; in 1859- 60 the average rate was three cents per ton per mile ; in 1896-97 it was four-fifths of a cent. On one railway, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the average freight rate per ton per mile in 1862 was seven cents ; in 1897 it was two- fifths of a cent. From 1858 to 1862 the average all-rail rate on a bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York was 383 cents ; from 1863 to 1867 it was 313 cents ; during the next five years it fell to 277% cents, again declining to 213 cents in 1873-77; in 1882 the average for the preced- ing five years was 16776 cents ; this was reduced during the ensuing term to 143 cents ; from 1888 to 1892 it was 14} cents ; and for the five years ending with 1897 it was 124 cents." Mr. Edgar's all-rail statistics end with 1897.
In the manufacture of iron rails Western Pennsylvania was prominent in the early days of American railroads. At Brady's Bend, on the Allegheny river, in Armstrong county, the Great Western iron works, including four furnaces and a rolling mill, were commenced in 1840 by the Great Western Iron Company, composed of Philander Raymond and others. The rolling mill was built in 1841 to roll bar iron but it afterwards rolled iron rails, which were at first only flat bars, with holes for spikes counter- sunk in the upper surface, and in 1846 and afterwards it rolled T rails. In 1856 it made 7,533 tons of rails. This was one of the first mills in the country to roll T rails, our first rails of this pattern having been rolled in 1844 at the Mount Savage rolling mill, in Maryland. The Brady's Bend mill continued to make rails until after the close of the civil war. In October, 1873, it ceased opera- tions. Shipments of rails were made by way of the Alle- gheny river. In 1849 the Great Western Iron Company failed and the Brady's Bend Iron Company took its place. The mill and the furnaces have long been abandoned and have gone to decay. In the Railway Age, of Chicago, for April 3, 1903, there appeared the following interesting
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reminiscence of the Brady's Bend enterprise, contributed by Mr. G. W. P. Atkinson.
" The Allegheny Valley Railway in 1865 operated only 44 miles from Pittsburgh to Kittanning. It is now part of the Pennsylvania system. At that time steamers ran up the Allegheny river from Pittsburgh to Franklin when there was water enough. There was a rail mill at Brady's Bend in 1865, with which the writer was connected, and which during the war made a great deal of railroad iron. William B. Ogden, Chicago's first mayor, was president of it and the writer had charge of its sales. If the river was not navigable for steamers we had to take the stage from the Kittanning end of the Allegheny Valley Railway to Brady's Bend, and a tough ride it was. The writer and William B. Ogden made the trip several times together. Rails were shipped by river in barges to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. In the fall of 1865 the writer shipped 2,000 tons of rails for the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad (which was run by the Government during the war) from the Brady's Bend mill in barges down the Allegheny and the Ohio rivers and up the Cumberland river to Nashville. It took about six weeks to reach Nashville. As one passes East Brady Station to-day on the Allegheny Valley Rail- way the tall stack of the rolling mill is visible on the op- posite side of the river, all that is left of the once busy town of Brady's Bend, with 3,000 people." The stack re- ferred to by Mr. Atkinson was torn down in 1903.
In 1853 the Cambria iron works were built at Johns- town, by the Cambria Iron Company, expressly to roll T rails, George S. King being the originator of the enterprise. He and Dr. Peter Shoenberger owned four charcoal fur- naces and thousands of acres of mineral lands near Johns- town. Within a year the works were making iron rails. It is recorded by the Johnstown Tribune that on Thurs- day, July 27, 1854, the Cambria Iron Company " made a fair and satisfactory trial of the entire machinery of the rolling mill" and that "it worked admirably." It added that "four large T rails were rolled and pronounced per- fect by competent judges." Four charcoal and four coke furnaces were connected with these works. In 1856, under
THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL RAILS. 207
new management, the mill rolled 13,206 tons of rails, and its annual rail production was afterwards increased. For almost twenty-nine years, beginning with 1855, Daniel J. Morrell, who died in 1885, was the successful general man- ager of these works. In 1871, through his persistent ad- vocacy of steel rails, their manufacture by the Bessemer process was added to that of iron rails, in which branch of the steel industry these works have ever since been prominent. The Bessemer plant made its first blow on July 10, 1871, and its first steel rail was rolled on July 12, 1871. John Fritz, the distinguished engineer, is entitled to the credit of having made the manufacture of iron rails at these works a conspicuous success, accomplished chiefly through his introduction of three-high rolls in 1857, more or less trouble having previously been experienced in the use of two-high rolls. His brother, George Fritz, also dis- tinguished as an engineer, successfully superintended the introduction at the same works of the Bessemer process and the manufacture of Bessemer steel rails. In 1898 the works were leased to the Cambria Steel Company, which now operates them.
In an address at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Franklin Institute, at Philadelphia, on October 4, 1899, John Fritz graphically described the first use of three- high rolls in the manufacture of iron rails at the Cambria iron works. From this account we take the following statements, which have historic value beyond their local interest-beyond even their interest for students of Penn- sylvania's great iron and steel industries. Mr. Fritz said :
"The year 1857 is a memorable period in the history of the manufacture of iron. Up to this time all the rails were rolled on a two-high train, the pile being passed back over the top roll, which was a great waste of time and loss of heat. When the flanges once began to crack, which was one of the serious troubles, being all the time rolled in one direction, the difficulty was greatly aggravated. The result was that when an imperfection occurred in the flange with each pass through the rolls the trouble increased, and to such an extent that it was a common occurrence for the flange to tear off the whole length of the rail and wind
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around the roll, forming what in rolling-mill parlance was called a collar, which very generally ended in breaking some part of the train and often the roll. During all this time I was giving the subject much considera- tion and had fully made up my mind that, if a three-high mill could be made to work, the difficulty could all be overcome. I besides had made up my mind that this was the only true way to roll iron. I was now prepared to suggest the building of a three-high mill, which I did. . .
" At length the mill was completed, and on the 3d day of July, 1857, the old mill was shut down for the last time. The starting of the new mill on that day was the crucial period. There were no invitations sent out. As the heaters were opposed to the new kind of a mill we did not want them about at the start. We, however, se- cured one of the most reasonable of them to heat the piles for a trial. We had kept the furnace hot for several days as a blind. Everything being ready we charged six piles. About ten o'clock in the morning the first pile was drawn out of the furnace and went through the rolls without a hitch, making a perfect rail. You can judge what my feelings were as I looked upon that perfect and first rail ever made on a three-high train."
On the day after this "first rail ever made on a three- high train" was rolled the mill of the Cambria iron works was burned down. After describing that event and the rebuilding of the mill in four weeks Mr. Fritz continues : " In four weeks from that time the mill was running and made 30,000 tons of rails without a hitch or break of any kind, thus making the Cambria Iron Company a great financial success, and giving them a rail plant far in ad- vance of any other plant in the world. This position they held, unquestioned, for both quality and quantity, until the revolutionary invention of Sir Henry Bessemer came into general use."
In 1865 the Superior Iron Company built the Superior rolling mill, at Manchester, below Allegheny City, to make iron rails. Connected with this mill were two coke fur- naces, built in 1863. The company operated the works until September, 1867, when they were leased by Springer
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THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL RAILS. 209
Harbaugh. On January 1, 1870, Harbaugh, Mathias & Owens took possession as owners, and on August 1, 1874, they failed, when the manufacture of rails at these works was discontinued. The works themselves have long been abandoned. A few other iron rail mills in Western Penn- sylvania, most of which were equipped for the manufac- ture only of mine rails and other light rails, need not be mentioned. Of these mills those which made rails of heavy sections never at any time produced any considera- ble tonnage. Some were mechanical failures ; others were financial failures. It is a noteworthy fact that Allegheny county, with all its enterprise in the manufacture of iron and steel, did not begin to make rails of heavy sections until the Superior rolling mill was built in 1865. Iron rails are not now made anywhere in Pennsylvania, except a very few tons of light rails for lumber and mine roads.
The Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel, which gives us the steel rail, dates from 1855, in which year Henry Bessemer, of England, obtained his first pat- ent for this process. Other patents followed in 1856, but the important invention was not perfected until 1857, in which year Robert Forester Mushet, also of England, add- ed his essential spiegeleisen improvement. In 1856 Mr. Bessemer obtained patents in this country for his inven- tion, but he was immediately confronted by a claim of priority of invention preferred by William Kelly, of Ed- dyville, Kentucky, but a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva- nia, which was eventually approved by the Commissioner of Patents. Inconsequential experiments were made with Mr. Kelly's process at the Cambria iron works in 1857 and 1858, but in September, 1864, steel was successfully made by his process at experimental works which were erected at Wyandotte, Michigan, by the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company. Success, however, was attained only by the use of the Mushet improvement, the control of which for this country the company had secured. In February, 1865, the firm of Winslow, Griswold & Holley was suc- cessful at Troy, New York, in making steel by the Besse- mer process with the Mushet improvement, the firm hav- ing obtained the control for this country of the Bessemer
14
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patents but not of the indispensable Mushet improvement. In 1866 the ownership of all the above patents was con- solidated, and soon afterwards the manufacture of Besse- mer steel in this country in commercial quantities was commenced. At first and for many years afterwards rails only were made from Bessemer steel, and to-day nearly all the rails that are in use in this country were made of this steel. In recent years, however, we have commenced to make rails of open-hearth steel in large quantities.
Steel rails have almost entirely supplanted iron rails on American railroads. Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States contains a statement which shows the number of miles of steam railroad track, exclusive of ele- vated city passenger railway tracks, that were laid with iron and steel rails respectively in each year from 1880 to 1907. In 1880 81,967 miles were laid with iron rails and 33,680 miles, or 29.1 per cent., were laid with steel rails. In 1907 9,319.88 miles were laid with iron rails and 314,- 713.50 miles, or 97.1 per cent., were laid with steel rails, the total being 324,033.38 miles. In both years side tracks, double tracks, etc., are included. The length of the steam railroads completed and in operation in the United States at the close of 1907, not including side tracks, sec- ond tracks, etc., and excluding all elevated city passenger railways, was 228,128.10 miles. The Manual, in giving the mileage of steam railroads in 1907 as aggregating 324,033 .- 38 miles, states that 224,382.19 miles were single track and 99,651.19 miles were second track, sidings, etc. At the end of 1906 there were 36,932 additional miles of street and suburban railway lines in the United States. Of this mile- age 36,212 miles were operated by electricity.
Much of the progress of this country in the manufac- ture of Bessemer steel rails has been due to the enterprise displayed by Andrew Carnegie at the Edgar Thomson steel works, at Braddock, east of Pittsburgh, the site of Braddock's defeat in 1755, the construction of which was undertaken in 1873 by Carnegie, McCandless & Co. and completed in 1875 by the Edgar Thomson Steel Com- pany, Limited. In both companies Mr. Carnegie was the leading spirit and stockholder, and his brother, Thomas
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M. Carnegie, who died in 1886, was also a stockholder. The works were built expressly to make Bessemer steel rails. They made their first blow on August 26, 1875, and rolled their first steel rail on September 1, 1875. At first only a Bessemer plant and a rolling mill were built, but in 1879 the erection of large blast furnaces was commenc- ed. Until these furnaces were built the Edgar Thomson steel plant was largely supplied with pig iron from the two near-by Lucy furnaces, built respectively in 1872 and 1877, and owned by the Carnegie brothers and others.
From year to year Mr. Carnegie steadily increased the capacity of the Edgar Thomson works and thus cheapen- ed the cost of producing rails, at the same time increasing his financial interest in the ownership of the works. From the first he had unbounded faith in the future of the steel rail ; he knew that its general substitution for the iron rail on American railroads was sure to come at an early day. He foresaw this evolution and fully prepared for it when experienced manufacturers and even many railroad offi- cials continued to praise the iron rail. Hence, while oth- ers were timid or neglectful of their opportunities, he in- troduced at the Edgar Thomson works from time to time the latest and most economical methods of manufacture ; the blast furnaces at these works were the best in the country, the Bessemer converters were the largest, and the rail mill was the swiftest; so that, when an extraordinary demand for steel rails would come, as it often did come, he was fully prepared to meet it and at a lower cost than that of his competitors. He had business foresight in an eminent degree; he had unfaltering courage; and more than all his cotemporaries he believed in tearing out and making a scrap heap of even modern machinery when bet- ter machinery could be found. The best engineering tal- ent in the country was engaged to bring the Edgar Thom- son works up to the highest possible state of efficiency.
These characteristics were again illustrated when Mr. Carnegie and his partners in the firm of Carnegie Broth- ers & Co. obtained full control of the Homestead steel works in 1883, and again in 1890 when Carnegie Broth- ers & Co., then operating the Edgar Thomson works, suc-
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ceeded to the ownership of the Duquesne steel works, with the result that steel in other forms than rails has been greatly cheapened to all consumers. This lowering of steel prices was accomplished through the use of the best me- chanical appliances and the production of the largest pos- sible tonnage. At the Edgar Thomson works Mr. Carnegie set the pace for a large annual tonnage of steel rails, and this policy was also applied to the production of pig iron and other products. His American competitors were soon compelled to abandon their conservative ideas and to enlarge the capacity and increase the efficiency of their works. And he has compelled Europe to revise in a large measure its metallurgical practice and also to cheapen its prices for all steel products. It has freely copied the de- vices and processes which his engineers, with his encour- agement, had introduced or perfected. Of the engineers re- ferred to Mr. Carnegie's first superintendent at the Edgar Thomson works, Captain William R. Jones, whose tragic death occurred in 1889, is entitled to special mention. To these engineers and to his "young partners" Mr. Car- negie has always acknowledged that he was under great obligations.
Mr. Carnegie's distinguished and remarkable career as an iron and steel manufacturer, which conspicuously be- gan on the threshold of the fourth quarter of the nine- teenth century, when the Edgar Thomson works were first put in operation, although he had previously been identi- fied with our iron industry, may be said to have ended immediately after the close of the nineteenth century, in February, 1901, when he transferred to the United States Steel Corporation the ownership of all the iron and steel properties and auxiliary enterprises in which he held a controlling proprietary interest. Soon afterwards, in 1902, he was chosen president of the Iron and Steel Institute, whose membership is not restricted by political or geo- graphical lines but which has its home in Great Britain, and he presided over its deliberations at the spring and autumn sessions of 1903, at London and Barrow respec- tively, on each occasion delivering an address. He also presided at the spring session of the Institute at London
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in 1904 and at the autumn meeting in New York in the same year. No higher honor can be conferred upon any iron and steel manufacturer, wherever his home may be, than to be elected to the presidency of the Iron and Steel Institute. Mr. Carnegie is the only American who has re- ceived this honor.
The great success of the Edgar Thomson steel works and of other Bessemer plants in the United States led to the erection in Allegheny county of two competing steel works, already noticed : the Homestead steel works, which were completed and put in operation in 1881, and the Du- quesne steel works, which were undertaken in 1886 and put in operation in 1889. Both these works were built to make Bessemer steel and its products, but, while the Homestead works were erected to make miscellaneous products, including rails, the Duquesne works were built to make rails and billets. The Homestead works rolled their first steel rail on August 9, 1881, and the Duquesne works rolled their first steel rail in March, 1889. Down to their absorption by Carnegie Brothers & Co. in 1883 the Homestead works rolled about 125,000 tons of rails, and down to their absorption by Carnegie Brothers & Co. in 1890 the Duquesne works rolled in all about the same number of tons, all, or nearly all, of the rails rolled by both works being of heavy sections. Since the changes in ownership above noted these works have not made many rails. The Homestead works have not made any rails since 1894 and the Duquesne works have not made any rails since 1897. The Homestead works were built by the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company and the Duquesne works by the Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company. Both companies were composed of Pittsburgh capitalists.
The prominence of Western Pennsylvania in the manu- facture of steel rails to-day is best shown by a reference to the statistical record. In 1906 the whole country made 3,791,459 tons of Bessemer steel rails, and of this large production Western Pennsylvania made 1,105,941 tons, or over 29 per cent. of the country's total production. This large tonnage was almost entirely rolled at the Edgar Thomson and the Cambria works, operated respectively
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