I have two souvenir sections of the rails on which streetcars ran here in Kearney, NE from 1890 to 1895. Would anyone have ideas on the meanings of the letters cast into these rails? I believe they were about 15 pound rails.

Dick

They appear to be portions of "ILLINOIS", which probably would have been the location of the mill where the rail was rolled.

JR

First off steel rail is rolled not cast.

The hot billet is fed through a series of rolling mills until it
is it's final size.

The last roller has the data engraved in it and this becomes
raised letters on the web of the rail.

It usually has the Steel Co. name, the style, the weight, the year,
and month of manufacture, and now days the heat treating.

"US Steel AREA 123-57 1956 /////"

For each month of the year they add a "/" to the roller
so the above example would be 123 lbs rail made in May 1956.

-Hudson

Hudson nailed it pretty good, and I would offer two other notes:

The raised letter side will also include some detail about the heat treatment or lack thereof. Some examples are: CC = control cooled, OH = Open Hearth, HH = head hardened. I am sure there are others.

The side opposite the raised letters gives you a serial number for the rail, usually stamped/stenciled vs. the raised letters on the opposite side. Not all rail is so marked -- there was a time before they started doing this. I have some 1898 and 1904 rail that isn't serialed, and some 1979 rail that is.

ETA

15 pound rail is pretty damn small. That sounds more like mining rail. The size of rail you might find used for a miniature train in a park or something. Streetcar rail would more likely be in the 56 to 80 pound range.

There are charts which compile dimensions of rail sections and cross referenced to "lbs per yard". If you would post the measurements, especially height of rail and width of base, I can probably come up with a section size. 15-lb rail is very light, but it would probably work for a small horse-car line.

Don't know the rail weight?
1. Take the short piece you have and measure the length in inches.
2. Weigh in on your bathroom scale
3. Divide the weight by the length in inches, this is the weight per inch
4. Multiply by 36, this is the weight per yard, this is the "weight" of rail you have.
5. Then look up common rail weights and pick the one that matches or is slightly larger (to account for wear), then check base and height against the chart to see if you get a match.
6. Or post here the weight per yard and base and height dimensions here and someone will find a good match.

Thanks to all for your very helpful information! Yes, I know 15 pound rail is very light. Kearney’s streetcars were small, and were first horse-drawn. Later they were replaced by electric cars quite similar in size. The rail sections I have each weigh about one pound, and are 2.4” long. That would mean 15 such sections in a yard, so that’s how I concluded the weight of the original rail. Mr. Schmidt, your suggested method is good, too.

Mr. Davis, thanks for the idea of the available charts. I found one from Unitrac Railroad Materials, Inc. There is no 15 pound rail listed, but the dimensions shown for 16 pound rail are exactly on target for my pieces. So I was off by only a pound, looks like. These images are taken from that chart. http://www.unitracrail.com/pdfs2007/Tra ... ection.pdf
Again, my appreciation to all who responded to my question.

Dick

Rolled by the Illinois Steel Company at the Gary Works in Gary, Indiana. In the great US Steel consolidation of 1901 Illinois Steel became Carnegie-Illinois.

Over the years i've hauled about a dozen or so short pcs. of old rail home that i cut roughly into 2ft. sections wich showed the complete mill markings on the side of the rail wich make neat display pcs.It's kind of a heavy hobby wich takes up space,more of than what most people would like to have laying around but i find it interesting seeing some of the different types of rail dated and manufactured from way back.I havn't been lucky enough to find any mill markings on any of the 1850's iron pear rail or U-rail sections i've found yet and do have a few pcs. of old iron strap rail.Some of the older T rail sections i have date back to the early 1870's.

A friend once sent me a email and photo attachment several years ago of a old rail collectors rail collection that lined the walls of his basement in his home.I was totally amazed as it went from the floor to the ceiling on 2-3 walls! All the rail sections were neatly mounted and catagorized.I had never seen anything like it before.


If any of you havn't checked out the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum.There's a page in the exhibit section titled California Iron from the G.J.Graves collection wich shows some pretty darn old rail in his collection you might find rather interesting.

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Caliron/index.html

Re: Kearney Street Railway.
Author, Ken Fletcher had done much research on this property for a still born book. The research material was give to me and turned over to Richard Schmeling, of Lincoln, Ne. Richard should have all the research material.
trolleyira
Ira Schreiber
Aurora, CO

This material would be of great interest to me and probably to those in our Buffalo County Historical Society. Would you be able to put me in touch with Mr. Schmeling or provide his contact information? Thanks!

Dick