NP, AG 5/22/1861

From the Alexandria (Va.) Gazette
 
May 22, 1861
 
The Quality of Iron Rails
   Quality not quantity; it the essential for economy in buying rails. How hard we have striven to impress this fact, -- so well known to every workman or employee on a railway, -- upon the hard heads of some managers. Now it is a fact that rails costing $80 per ton may be really cheap, while others costing 20 may be actually very dear. There is the same difference in the quality of rails, that there is in boots and shoes. An expert can readily detect the real value of rails as well as some railway managers can tell the quality of a piece of roast beef or mutton they are masticating. Just remember this fact; there is no company so rich that it can afford to pay for poor material for the superstructure of its line. In England the necessity of employing good iron for rails, is now, generally acknowledged, that, in order to insure a superior quality, one of the greatest railway companies have established works to manufacture their own iron; and another company, not less important, are just about to follow their example.
   In the United States, too, the managers of the best conducted roads do not scruple to pay from five to fifteen dollars per ton above the quoted market rates for rails. They find this is true economy, and so will the rest of them, if they secure what they pay for -- rails of the best quality. The heaps of refuse material which is rolled into the shape of rails, and peddled about the country at a low price, is just like Pindar's razors -- made to sell, not wear. Experts for the examination of rails can be had if the companies are willing to pay for the service they render., and let us assure our managers that they can afford to pay well for just this kind of information; -- or rather, they can't afford not to have the information no matter what it costs to procure it.
Railway Times

Home