IMPROVEMENTS IN UTILIZING OLD OR WORN RAILWAY RAILS AND OTHER LIKE BARS, AND IN MACHINERY FOR THAT PURPOSE
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Stonehewer at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 18th February 1876.
WILLIAM STONEHEWER, of Tipton, in the County of Stafford, General Merchant.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN UTILIZING OLD OR WORN RAILWAY RAILS AND OTHER LIKE
BARS, AND IN MACHINERY FOR THAT PURPOSE."
In the ordinary method of utilizing old or worn railway rails by rolling them
into bars or strips of various sectional figures, each of the said rails is combined
with two strips of iron placed respectively on cach side the rail between the
leads of the said rail. These strips fill up the depressions between the heads of the
rail and the rail, and the said filling pieces being heated to a welding heat they are
passed through rolls and welded into a compact bar and fashioned to the required
figure.
My Invention consists first in utilizing the said old railway rails by producing
therefrom bars or strips of various sectional figures without the use of the filling
pieces ordinarily used, whereby great economy is effected in the utilization of the
said old railway rails.
My Invention consists further in the machinery herein-after described for the
purpose of utilizing the said rails according to my Invention.
I will describe the process of utilizing the said rails in conjunction with the
machinery employed.
According to one of my improvements I operate upon the rail so as to turn the
flanges constituting the heads of the rail upon the middle part or web of the rail,
the edges of the said flanges when thus turned towards cach other meeting on each
side of the body of the rail. In effecting this I employ a pair or three high rolls
(making two pairs), the said rolls having deep grooves and corresponding flanges,
and the said rolls engage with one another in the ordinary way. The peripheries
both of the flanges and grooves are concave. The old rail heated to a welding heat
is introduced into the said rolls with the body of the rail vertical; that is, the rail in
passing through the rolls stands upright, or in the position in which it is fixed on a
railway, instead of lying horizontally as in the ordinary method of treatment. By
the operation of the rolls described the flanges of the two heads of the rail are
turned, those of the top head downwards, and those of the bottom head upwards.
The further action of the rolls welds the several parts of the rail together and

page_text: makes one compact bar, which by the operation of other rolls of the ordinary kind
may be made into a bar of any required section.
According to another of my improvements I operate upon the rail by means of
rolls similar to those already described, excepting that the grooves and flanges are
cylindrical. In this case the rail is passed through the rolls in an upright position,
as in the former case, but the action of the said rolls on the heads of the rail is not
to bend their edges but to flatten their faces, and so to compress the rail vertically
that the body is diminished in depth, and thereby made to thicken or expand
laterally. By this action the rail is welded into a compact bar, rectangular in cross
section, and by other rolls it is fashioned into the required shape. The rolls in both
cases are provided with guards, by which the bar as it passes from the rolls is
liberated from the rolls and directed horizontally.
My Invention is applicable to the utilizing of scrap or waste rails and bars of like
form, as well as to the utilizing of old or worn railway rails.