Re: D&RG Rail

tgbcvr Wrote:
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> So who was the D&RG rail manufacturer? And by any
> chance does a museum have a piece of this?
>

ISTR reading of rails from the 1870's being found in the Alamosa yard in the early 1950's and that those were marked as being from Barrow, England. ( I think it was in a piece by Bob Richardson but a quick scan hasn't revealed it yet) Could quite easily have been some rail from 1871-72 since that 30lb iron rail was re-used all over the system after the Denver - Pueblo main received heavier rail later in the decade.

"Because of delay in receiving iron rails from Great Britain, the first spike was not driven until July 28th.[ Ahearn, "The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad " p18 (reprint of "Rebel of the Rockies")]

Buying rail from Europe was not that uncommon in the 19th century, for example the RR that became the Great Northern was laid with (steel) rail from Krupp[1] of Germany, and Palmer *was* an anglophile. US ironmakers may have had some capacity formerly taken up by the army freed after the Civil War but, as the country was growing by leaps and bounds, I'm sure they had as much business as they could handle. So ordering from Europe was probably just as cost effective as from Pennsylvania in the 1870's.

hank

[1] The Krupp works made its name with steel rail, one of the first producers, long before the Krupps became know as the Cannon Kings.