CATALOGUE OF THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING COLLECTION. 95 



it cooled. The first shipment, consisting of 550 bars 18 feet long, 

 36 pounds to the yard, arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Charle- 

 magne, May IG, 1831. 



The weight of the rails of the next shipment, several months 

 afterwards, was increased to 42 pounds a yard, the rail being 3^ 

 inches high. Over 30 miles of this rail was immediately laid down. 

 It was fastened to stone blocks with hook-headed spikes; at the 

 joints were iron tongues fastened to the stem of the rail by rivets 

 put on hot. This was the standard rail of the Camden and Amboy 

 Eailroad during 1831-40. 



From a letter Avritten by Francis B. Stevens to James M. Swank, 

 Esq., special agent of statistics, dated Hoboken, New Jersey, March, 

 1882, the following extracts are taken : 



I have always believed that Robert L. Stevens was the inventor of what is 

 called the T-rail, and also of the method of fastening it by spikes, and I have 

 never Ivnown his right to the invention questioned. 



Mr. Stevens's invention consisted in adding the broad flange on the bottom, 

 with base sufficient to carry the load, and shaped so that it could be secured to 

 the wood below it by spikes with hooked heads, thus dispensing with the cast- 

 iron chair, and malving the rail and its fastening such as it now is in common 

 use. 



In the year 1836 and frequently afterward he spoke to me about his inven- 

 tion of this rail. The Camden and Amboy laid with this rail was opened 

 October 9, 1832, two years after the opening of the Manchester and Livei-pool 

 Railroad. Of this I was a witness. This rail, long known as the old Camden 

 and Amboy rail, differed but little either in shape or proportions from the 

 T-rail now in common use but weighed only 36 pounds to the yard. For the 

 next sis or eight years after the opening of the Camden and Amboy Railroad 

 it was little used here or abroad, nearly all the roads built in the United States 

 using the flat iron bar, about 2A or 3/4 inches, nailed to wooden rails ; the 

 English contintiing to use the chair and wedges. 



My uncle always regretted that he had not patented his invention. He men- 

 tioned to me upward of forty years ago that when advised by his friend, Mr. 

 F. B. Ogden, the American consul at Liverpool, who was familiar with the 

 circumstances of his invention, to patent it, he found that it was too late, and 

 that his invention had become public property. 



Shortly after the first laying of the Stevens rails on the Camden 

 and Amboy Railroad, the rivets at the joints were discarded and the 

 bolt with the screw thread and nut, similar to that now used, was 

 adopted as the standard. 



The Stevens rail did not come into general use for several years, 

 the next road to adopt it being the Boston and Providence, about 

 1840. On the Boston and Lowell Railroad in Massachusetts the 

 fish-bellied rail was laid in chairs on stone blocks. As late as 1847 

 the Hudson River Road used the Stevens rail supported by chairs, 

 but these were soon afterwards discarded. 



