Age of steel was coming.

wausaubob

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The first experimental application of steel rails for railroads occurred in Derbyshire, England, in 1857.
The experiment was replicated in the US in Pennsylvania, in 1864. https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1CA
Thus the entire Civil War takes place with the railroad industry fully aware that heavy rail traffic rapidly wears out iron rails.
By 1860 there were 20,000 miles of railroads in a growing northern US railroad system. It was easy to project that coal fired Bessemer steel was going to steadily replace iron in railroad rails over the remainder of the century.
Once the demand for steel was consistent and growing, the applications into naval vessels, construction materials, and eventually into internal combustion vehicles, was unlimited.
It is reasonable to assert that the application of steel to railroads was going to be as significant as the application of steam power to spinning and weaving.
Political leaders and journalists were not completely aware of this issue. But railroad men, in Britain and in the US knew. They read the same newspaper reports and shared the same professional journals.
And beginning in December 1863, generals in both the US and the Confederacy were going to get an accelerated course in the costs of railroad maintenance.
 
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Some of the smartest youngsters at the time saw the advent of steel construction, beginning with its use for I shaped rails and expanding into the widely used I beam for construction. Andrew Carnegie started out as a telegraph operator for one of the early railroad companies. He understood the potential and went on to start his own steel company.
 
Some of the smartest youngsters at the time saw the advent of steel construction, beginning with its use for I shaped rails and expanding into the widely used I beam for construction. Andrew Carnegie started out as a telegraph operator for one of the early railroad companies. He understood the potential and went on to start his own steel company.
The first need was for pre-fabricated bridge elements. Scott told Carnegie to get to Pittsburgh and get busy.
 
In the context of the Civil War, for Vicksburg and Port Hudson garrisons to surrender, for Sherman to return to Jackson, MS and sack it a second time, for Rosecrans to get to Chattanooga with minimal casualties, a repeat of his w. Virginia efforts, by September 9, and for Burnside to get to Knoxville, about the same time, was going to put enormous pressure of what remained of the Confederate railroads.
 
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