The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-04
RAILROADS PLACE B|G RAIL ORDERS Rapid Advance in Prices Accountable for Action BIG ORE PURCHASES Pennsylvania Places Order for 175, 900 Tons of Rails and Makes In-
 quiry Regarding Nine
 Thousand Cars
BIG ORE PURCHASES

Cleveland, O, November 3.-(Special9 The Iron Trade Review tomorrow will say: Rapid advances in the price of |. steel products, filling up of mills on orders and deferring of deliveries have brought to railroads realization of importance of placing their orders quickly and they are doing so in all directions. Following the placing of an order for 75,0eo tons of rails by the Pennsylvania. which was the largest order of it's kind by that system , with one exception, in the past 10 years, the company sent out an inquiry for 5000 cars. While reports of many other i'm portant inquiries are heard, some of these Inquiries are being made definitely and few have already developed into orders. Oc- tober was the largest month of present ! year in rail buying with orders amount- ing to 690,000 tons, compared with 32o,O0V tons in September
 Coke and anthracite furnaces of the country made a wonderful showing ID October when 3,120,3+0 tons of pig iron were produced which was a reeord-mak- ing output for September. Furnaces are now turning out pig iron at the rate or nearly 31500,000 tons per year. A pig iron buying movement of very large size was started ill Pittsburg during the last few days and sales of steel making iron have
 
 Heavy Pig Iron Sales
 Following the quiet buying of about < COCO tons basic by the Jones & Laughlin Steel company, Youngstown Sheet ana Tube company purchased 75,000 tons basic and besselner. and other sales included 1000 tons basic to the American Steel Foundries; 5000 tons bessemer to the Re public Iron and Steel company: 10000 tons of basic to the Wheeling Steel and Iron company; 100O0 tons basic to Allegheny Steel company and 10000 tons malleable to the National Malleable Castings company. At Buffalo Lackawanna Steel company has contracted for 10000 tons hot metal to be furnished by the Susquehanna fur naces, and in the same district 30000 tons of merchant iron have been sold. At Chicago and in the south sales are being made at $1 ton higher than last week. In other centers prices have been ad- vanced.
 Low phosphorus pig iron continues to climb as sales of iron ore for the sea- son amounted to 46,66 796 tons, of which 29,273,772 tons were Messaba ores.
 Shipments from the Lake Superior dis trict for October amounted to 7,146S75 tons making a total to November of 41,S16,4S9 tons. and indicating that ore sold can easily be moved.
 An eastern Pennsylvania steel company has purchased 5000 tons low phosphorus ore. Inquiries for from 300,000 to 100000 tons bars for export are not receiving serious attion on account of the filled up condition of the mills. Specifications on shapes, plates and bars are extremely heavy, and while s1.50 is the price of leading interests, some companies are Quotin, as high as H.70 Pittsburg.
 Demand for plates from car and ship building companies is very heavy. Sheets are also in active demand. Scarcity of biflets has become more pronounced and some of the most important makers have their output sold for considerable time ahead. Some extremely high prices es- pecially for forging billets, are being ob- tained.