Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-12-14
THE LIFE OF RAILS.
From the London Railway Times.I

From the London Railway TimesJ
1t is hardly safe now to regard any
estimate of iron rails. Not that iron
rails connOt be made that will show
good wearing results, but from the fact
that, with very few exceptions, none
are made. On the Boston and ALBANY
railroad some twelve thousand tons of
iron rails were laid last year, and of this
amount eight hundred tons have been
removed from the track as useless or
unsafe The managers of this road, in
common with most others havingroads of
large traffic, have resolved to adopt the
use of steel rails hereafter, and we learn
that they have bought some nine thou
sand tons of steel rails in Europe, four
thousand tons of which will arrive and
be put on the track this season, and the
balance during the next summer.
The duration or life of rails depends
upon the quality of the iron of which
they are made, and upon the amount
and speed of the traffic passing over
them. The rails first made in England
were rolled from the best number one
cold-blast mine iron, run out in a finerv
fire, puddled, shingled, rolled into bars,
and were cut, piled, heated, and ham,
mered into blooms, and these were re-
heated and rolled into rails. The re-
suit was a material such as is rarely
seen upon our railways at the present
time. The old forty-five pounds Read
ing rail bore an immense traffic for
twenty ye1rs, and a like character of
rail on the Boston and Providence road
lasted some thirty years, and many of
these rails are now in use on the road,
though not in exposed positions The
iron at frst used upon English roads in
many cases withstood from fifteen 10
twenty years of wear under an enormous
traffic. 1t was estimated in l849 upoD
the London and Northwestern railway
that fifty trains day for twenty wears,
or three hundred and thirteen thousand
trains, would wear out a seventy-pounds
rail. With the material now put into
railway tracks, however, no such service
Is obtained. Under favorable con-
ditiOns, good iron will last eight wears
under an average traffic: but with the
material commonly employed, from
three to six years is all that can be
counted upon for roads doing a good
amount of work; and the life of the
iron upon the great routes is in many
cases less than this.
ANeastAs W NAAC AAAC vi StEGl IdllS,
everything here again depenklsr upon
the quality of the metal. A pair of
twenty-one feet Bessemer steel rails,
upon the London and Northwestern
outlasted sixteen faces of iron
rail, being evenly worn to depth of a
little over quarter of an inch; having
IN about three years sustained the traffic
Of upward of nine million six hundred
thousand engines and cars, or about
million tons. ThisparticuIar
pair of rails were finally destroyed by
locomotive running off the track, the
wheels striking the rails traversely and
badly bending and breaking them. Itl
IS estimated that they would have en-
tured at least One-half as much more
tonnage but for the accident. So, too,
upon the Philadelphia, Wilmington
ana Baltimore railway, a good steel rail |
has outiasted sixteen iron rails, the use
Df both being the same, and on many |
Dther roads of large traffic the same |
successful results have been achieved |
Railway managers have to exercise |
more care and discrimination in the |
quality Of the rails they purchase,
made of iron or steel. In fact, |
here is good amount of pretty |
stuff sold for steel rails, as |
'ome Of the managers of the New Eng |
and roads know to their cost.