An extract from a letter addressed to me by our colleague, Mr. E.W.
Richards, will describe better than any words of mine the perfection
at which steel rail mills have arrived. He says, "Our cogging rolls
are 48 in. diameter, and the roughing and finishing rolls are 30 in.
diameter. We roll rails 150 feet long as easily as they used to roll
21 feet. Our ingots are 15½ inches square, and weigh from 25 to 30
cwts. according to the weight of rail we have to roll. These heavy
ingots are all handled by machinery. We convey them by small
locomotives from the Bessemer shop to the heating furnaces, and by the
same means from the heating furnaces to the cogging rolls.
So quickly are these ingots now handled that we have given up second
heating altogether, so that after one heat the ingot is cogged from
15½ inches square down to 8 inches square, then at once passed on to
the roughing and finishing rolls, and finished in lengths, as I have
said before, of 150 ft., then cut at the hot saws to the lengths given
in the specifications, and varying from 38 ft. to about 21 ft. The 38
ft. lengths are used by the Italian 'Meridionali' Railway Company, and
found to give very satisfactory results." I need scarcely say that in
a mill like this, the expenditure of fuel and labor and the loss by
waste caused by crop ends are reduced to a minimum.