Utilising Worn-out Railway Rails.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 15th Nov., 1898-Accepted, 23rd Dec., 1898
2,
Utilising Worn-out Railway Rails.
-: ..
I, JOHN WILLIAM THOMAS, of 56, 5th Avenue, Chicago, in the County of Cook
and State of Illinois, United States of America, Superintendent, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
•
When steel railway rails have served their lives they are usually broken up,
reduced by melting and run into ingots at great expense, preparatory to being
worked up into new shapes. They can not practically be rolled down into other
forms from their original body, owing to their flanges and re-entrant angles,
which would cause folds and laps incapable of welding together.
My improvement consists in taking the rail as it comes from the road-bed,
running it through a heating furnace, then slitting it lengthwise into workable
bars, eliminating re-entrant angles unsuitable for the product and finally passing
the bars thus obtained and while still heated, through forming rolle whereby they
are turned out in round, square, angle, or other commercial shape. I thus avoid
the expense and the percentage of loss and deterioration in quality due to the
melting operation, by leaving it out altogether.
In the three figures of the drawing I have indicated diagrammatically, for the
purpose of explaining my invention, the reduction of three rails into various forms
of commercial stock.
In Figure 1 the rail A, having first been raised to a suitable heat, is slit
longitudinally to separate the tread a from the web a and base b¹, and the two
bars thus obtained being immediately run in their heated condition through
forming rolls, the tread may be shaped into an angle bar A', or a square bar Ã³,
or other suitable form, and the web and base into a tee-bar A³, as shown.
Or the heated may be slit between web and tread and weld and base, as in
Figure 2, and the tread then rolled into a round bar B, or diamond bar B or into
any other of the forms indicated in connection with Fig. 1; the web into a flat
bar B', or into fillet angle or square bar, and the base into an angle bar Bª, or a
channel bar B³, or other shape conformable to its outline.
If stock is desired in the form of comparatively small rods or bars the sub-
division of the rail can be carried still further, care being taken to eliminate all
re-entrant angles which are not to be perpetuated in the product. For instance
the flanges of the tread and c¹ of the base may be separated from the body
portions, leaving the latter integral with, the web and forming a heavy bar which
may be rolled into I, channel or angle shape as indicated at C, C and C³, while
round rods C may be rolled from the detached flanges of the tread, and flat or
other bars C from those of the base.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is:
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1. The improvement in the manufacture of stock from worn out steel railway

page_text: rails, consisting in first heating the rail, then slitting it lengthwise into bars of
workable shape, and finally running these bars while still heated through forming
or shaping rolls.
2. The improvement in the manufacture of stock from worn out steel rails,
consisting in first heating the rail, then slitting it lengthwise into bars without
re-entrant angles, and finally passing "the still heated bars between forming or
shaping rolls.
3. The improvement in the manufacture of stock from worn out steel railway
rails, consisting in first heating the rail, then slitting it lengthwise to divide the
tread from the web and the web from the base, and finally passing the still heated
bars thus obtained, through forming rolls.
Dated this 15th day of November 1898.
.I
WHEATLEY & MACKENZIE,
40, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Agents.
WHEATLEY & MACKENZIE,
40, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Agents.