Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 112, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1916 — HEAVIER AND HIGHER RAILS [ARTICLE]

HEAVIER AND HIGHER RAILS

Lehigh Valley Orders Biggest Ever Made for General Service on American Steam Roads. The Lehigh Valley railroad has ordered 2,500 tons of rails that will weigh 136 pounds to the yard. According to the Railway Age Gazette, these will be the heaviest rails ever made for general service on a steam road in this country. They will be seven inches high and six and one-half inches wide at the base, which is an inch higher and an inch wider than the 110-pound rail now in general use. Until about two years ago rails that weighed 100 pounds to the yard were the heaviest in general use. A year ago the rail commission of the American Railway Engineering association submitted sections for 100, 110, 120, 130, and 140-pound rails, but did not recommend the last two sections, since it did not consider that they were then necessary. The Pennsylvania railroad adopted a-standard* 125pound rail section a ybar ago, and has laid a large number of the new rails during the past season. Everywhere throughout the country the tendency is toward heavier rails. In 1897 only 20 per cent of all the rails produced in that year weighed 85 pounds a yard or,more. By 1900 the percentage had risen to 25; by 1905 to 46; by 1910 to 58; and by 1914 to 72.