AN IMPROVED MODE OF CUTTING OR UTILIZING OLD RAILWAY RAILS, AND AN IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREFOR
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 10th July 1868.-A communication from abroad by Leopold
Taskin, of Jemeppe, Belgium.
I, CLINTON EDGCUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman,
and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN
IMPROVED MODE OF CUTTING OR UTILIZING OLD RAILWAY RAILS, AND AN IMPROVED
CONSTRUCTION OF APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREFOR," to be as follows:-
The chief object of this Invention is the better treatment of old
railway rails by causing them to undergo an economical transformation,
which not only facilitates their ordinary utilization but also renders
them suitable for new purposes.
Hitherto old rails have been of small value owing to their having
been found of little use; they have sometimes been used in making
accessory lines and have sometimes been cut up and remanufactured, but
as the head and the bottom of the rail are often of a different metal
a bar of homogeneous quality cannot be obtained. It has also been

page_text: proposed to cut up the rails when heated by rolling, but this mode is
expensive and requires special arrangements.
Now the present Invention consists in cutting the rails when cold.
by means of shears. I cut the rails longitudinally about the middle of
the web connecting the head and the bottom, or the two heads in the
case of double-headed rails; I effect this by guillotine shears, the knives
or cutters of which are arranged for the purpose. I modify the form of
the shears to adapt them for supporting and guiding the rails. The
bottom of the rail (in the case of a flat-bottomed or vignoles rail) rests
on the jaw of the fixed cutter, while the movable cutter in descending
separates the head (with part of the web), which falls of itself. To
firmly support or hold the bottom of the rail I make in the fixed jaw a
recess or groove corresponding in form to one wing of the rail bottom,
and I attach to the frame of the shears an arm, the end of which is bent
and shaped to hold the other wing of the rail bottom; the rail being
introduced into this sort of guide is retained by its two wings, the lower
being in the groove of the fixed jaw and the upper abutting against the
The rail head projects beyond the fixed cutter, the edge of which
is in the line of cut, and the head is above an opening or cavity in which
the upper jaw works, and into which the severed piece falls. The
movable cutter extends beyond the base of its jaw sufficiently to come
in contact only with the web of the rail and to avoid the tearing which
would take place if the jaw abutted against the head before the cutting
of the rail was completed. After the cutting of the rails the heads may
be used to make bars or rods of any desired section by piling or other-
wise, while the bottoms may be converted into bars by piling, or into
T-irons, or be otherwise utilized; or the cut rails may be used separately,
or coupled, as railway sleepers.