Flat, Heavy, and T Rails

USS ALASKA

Captain
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
@DaveBrt

We need a forum section for Railroads... :wink:

From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/24/1862, p. 3, c. 2
RAILROAD IRON.
We have a lot of new T RAILS that we will exchange for old FLAT or HEAVY RAILS, if application be made at once.

J. R. ANDERSON & CO.

What would be the purpose of this advertisement from the Tredegar Iron Works? Scrape to make armor with? This is after CSS Virginia was completed so it wouldn't be for her would it?

Thanks,
USS ALASKA
 
There were several other ironclads for the James River Squadron (Virginia II, Richmond and Fredericksburg ) that were built with armor from the Tredegar Iron Works. Also, the iron could be used for making cannons and other ordinance. Once the iron ore mines in West Virginia became occupied by Union forces, any type of iron came into demand by the Confederacy.
 
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I guess what caught my eye was the fact that they were offering to exchange new T rails for old equipment. New rails were scarce in the Confederacy although this is rather early in the war.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
I guess what caught my eye was the fact that they were offering to exchange new T rails for old equipment. New rails were scarce in the Confederacy although this is rather early in the war.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
That would seem to be a tad unusual.
 
@DaveBrt

We need a forum section for Railroads... :wink:

From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/24/1862, p. 3, c. 2
RAILROAD IRON.
We have a lot of new T RAILS that we will exchange for old FLAT or HEAVY RAILS, if application be made at once.

J. R. ANDERSON & CO.

What would be the purpose of this advertisement from the Tredegar Iron Works? Scrape to make armor with? This is after CSS Virginia was completed so it wouldn't be for her would it?

Thanks,
USS ALASKA
Tredegar made a batch of T-rail just before the war. My guess is that it was a test lot, using the shape patented by the Atlanta Iron Works -- who refused to allow Tredegar to use their patent.

In 1861, Tredegar was trying to get rid of this lot and advertised it to various railroads. The Wilmington & Manchester RR bought 590 bars, 23 feet long, weighing 50.6 lbs per yard in December. Wilmington & Weldon RR bought the balance of the rails (490 bars) at the same time.

The scrap iron being requested in the ad would have been used for general iron making -- bars, horse shoes, projectiles, armor etc -- but not cannon. The amount of t-rail left for this sale must have been pretty small, as there is no indication of Tredegar making a second batch of rails.

All the above come from the Tredegar correspondence and shop records at the Library of Virginia. Unfortunately, many of the letters are too fragile to be photographed and no one had made copies of them earlier (so far as I can find).
 
The scrap iron being requested in the ad would have been used for general iron making -- bars, horse shoes, projectiles, armor etc -- but not cannon.

Scrap wasn't considered of high enough quality for weapons? Cannon were cast with new metal?

Thanks,
USS ALASKA
 
@DaveBrt

We need a forum section for Railroads... :wink:

From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/24/1862, p. 3, c. 2
RAILROAD IRON.
We have a lot of new T RAILS that we will exchange for old FLAT or HEAVY RAILS, if application be made at once.

J. R. ANDERSON & CO.

What would be the purpose of this advertisement from the Tredegar Iron Works? Scrape to make armor with? This is after CSS Virginia was completed so it wouldn't be for her would it?

Thanks,
USS ALASKA

Tredegar is famous for making cannon and armor plate for the Confederacy but it continued to manufacture other more commercial items, notably railroad spikes, throughout the war. Perhaps the scrap iron was used for this purpose.

Interestingly, Tredegar did not suffer that badly from the fall of the Confederacy. The factory was undamaged by the big Richmond fire of 1865 and was only closed temporarily by the Union occupation of the city. It resumed making commercial iron products and the company even reported profits in 1866. Tredegar continued in operation for some 50 years after the close of the war.
 
Read Drew's Tredegar book. He talks about Tredegar only making cannon with ores from specific mines because of the quality of the metal.

Drew's book is definitely worth reading. I visited the Tredegar site last fall and that's definitely worthwhile as well.
 
Tredegar is famous for making cannon and armor plate for the Confederacy but it continued to manufacture other more commercial items, notably railroad spikes, throughout the war. Perhaps the scrap iron was used for this purpose.

Interestingly, Tredegar did not suffer that badly from the fall of the Confederacy. The factory was undamaged by the big Richmond fire of 1865 and was only closed temporarily by the Union occupation of the city. It resumed making commercial iron products and the company even reported profits in 1866. Tredegar continued in operation for some 50 years after the close of the war.
One of the main uses of iron was making the bars from which other objects were made. Bars were round, square and oblong and were ordered by end size -- 3" round, 2 1/2" x 3" etc. The length of the bars is not recorded in the Tredegar records. Price was strictly by weight (50# of any round was the same price as 50# of any other shape). The blacksmiths then cut beat these bars into the host of braces, brackets, flanges, etc, etc needed for almost any construction.

Other major uses of iron was for horse shoes, balls, shells, nails and cooking items (hollow ware). Railroad rails, though not made during the war, were low quality iron. Only cannon needed high quality iron.
 
We need a forum section for Railroads... :wink:

I'll drink to that! :spin:

Scrap wasn't considered of high enough quality for weapons? Cannon were cast with new metal?

You have to be careful about the quality of iron used for cannons, or they will blow up in your face.

There's a reason why reinactors only use half a charge of black powder.
 
Read Drew's Tredegar book. He talks about Tredegar only making cannon with ores from specific mines because of the quality of the metal.

I have that book - read it twice. That was years ago and I guess I forgot that detail...

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
While some "T" rails were recycled, others were used just as they were for armor. On the CSS Georgia, they were laid with two rows of rails up and one row down interlocking the "T"s.
 
Just a quick question, was rail gauge standardised throughout the USA at the time of the CW or were different companies using different gauges?
 
Just a quick question, was rail gauge standardised throughout the USA at the time of the CW or were different companies using different gauges?
I don't have he numbers with me, but the North had twice as many gauges as the south. With only one exception, the South, east of the Mississippi, was essentially two large blocks of gauges. Loads were unloaded and reloaded more because of a change in RR company than they were because of change of gauge.
 
Just a quick question, was rail gauge standardised throughout the USA at the time of the CW or were different companies using different gauges?

No standardization at all.

Labor was dirt cheap, so reloading was not expensive at all. However, the time delay was often annoying. Where railroads connected, there was usually a freight station with tracks on either side of the building.
 
No standardization at all.

Labor was dirt cheap, so reloading was not expensive at all. However, the time delay was often annoying. Where railroads connected, there was usually a freight station with tracks on either side of the building.
In the South, loading and unloading labor was not usually a problem, since they were hired slaves. The largest problem that I see is the difference in capacity of two abutting roads, causing a build up of supplies waiting capacity on the next road. This was some times relieved by running a few special trains through onto the next road, but this had to be arranged each time and was not particularly common.
 
I don't have he numbers with me, but the North had twice as many gauges as the south. With only one exception, the South, east of the Mississippi, was essentially two large blocks of gauges. Loads were unloaded and reloaded more because of a change in RR company than they were because of change of gauge.
Thank you,

I decided to take a look at how and when the gauge was standardised, I note that the South had a gauge of 5 feet and the North 4ft 9". Apparently the rail in the south had to be reduced by 3 inches along with all of its rolling stock. It sounds like a complete logistical nightmare. This is apparently how it was done.

Only one rail would be moved in on the day of the change, so inside spikes were hammered into place at the new gauge width well in advance of the change, leaving only the need for a few blows of the sledgehammer once the rail was placed. As May 31 drew near, some spikes were pulled from the rail that was to be moved in order to reduce as much as possible the time required to release the rail from its old position.

Rolling stock, too, was being prepared for rapid conversion. Contemporary accounts indicate that dish shaped wheels were provided on new locomotives so that on the day of the change, reversing the position of the wheel on the axle would make the locomotive conform to the new gauge. On some equipment, axles were machined to the new gauge and a special ring positioned inside the wheel to hold it to the 5-foot width until the day of the gauge change. Then the wheel was pulled, the ring removed, and the wheel replaced.

Source: http://kottke.org/14/09/the-days-they-changed-the-gauge

I also found this quote which I though was interesting.

'
As things turned out, having different gauges was advantageous to the South, since the North could not easily use railroad to move its troops to battle in southern territory during the Civil War. Noting this example, the Finns were careful to ensure that their railroads used a gauge different from the Russian railroads! The rest of Europe adopted a standard gauge, which made things easy for Hitler during World War II: a significant fraction of German troop movements in Europe were accomplished by rail.'
 
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