Solving the Puzzle of the First American Structural Rail-Beam

Abstract

Certain published historical records seem to indicate that the first American heavy rail was rolled in 1854, yet others attest to the use of heavy rail on the Camden and Amboy Railroad as early as 1848. This paper is an attempt to analyze these conflicting accounts and to present a true chronology of the development of the structural rail-beam.1 In 1847 the Trenton Iron Works first rolled a 7-inch rail weighing 90 pounds per yard. After a small initial production, machinery failure forced the mill to withdraw from rolling rails.2 Following several years' delay, a second attempt was made to roll such rail, this time as floor beams for the proposed fireproof Cooper building. Even then, the mill was involved in two years of struggle and heartbreak before the rail-beam was finally made in the spring of 1854.3 A section of the first beam rolled for structural purposes 1853-from Cooper Union (Fig. 1) describes a section of iron presented to the Smithsonian Institution by the American Institute of Steel Construction in March 1965.4 The specimen measured 71 inches high with a flange 5i inches wide (Table 1, source n). According to equally authoritative sources, the Camden and Amboy Railroad began laying heavy rail in 1848. Fifteen miles of track were