The first steel rail was made in 1857, by Mushet, at the Ebbw-Vale Iron
Co.’s works in South Wales. It was rolled from cast blooms of Bessemer
steel and laid down at Derby, England, and remained sixteen years, during
which time 250 trains and at least 250 detached engines and tenders
passed over it daily. Taking 312 working days in each year, we have the
total of 1,252,000 trains and 1,252,000 detached engines and tenders
which passed over it from the time it was first laid before it was
removed to be worked over.
The substitution of steel for iron, to an extent rendered possible by the
Bessemer process, has worked a great and abiding change in the condition
of our ways, giving greater endurance both in respect of wear and in
resistance to breaking strains and jars.
Two steel rails of twenty-one feet in length were laid on the 2nd of May,
1862, at the Chalk Farm Bridge, side by side with two ordinary rails.
After having outlasted sixteen faces of the ordinary rails, the steel
ones were taken up and examined, and it was found that at the expiration
of three years and three months, the surface was evenly worn to the
extent of only a little more than a quarter of an inch, and to all
appearance they were capable of enduring a great deal more work. The
result of this trial was to induce the London and North Western to enter
very extensively into the employment of steel rails.
_Knight’s Dictionary of Mechanics_.