At a later date, when the process had become established in England,
capitalists began to erect the present Pennsylvania Steel Works at
Harrisburg. These also had to pass through an experimental stage and
at a critical moment would probably have been wrecked but for the
timely assistance of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. It required a
broad and able man like President Thomson, of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, to recommend to his board of directors that so large a sum
as six hundred thousand dollars should be advanced to a manufacturing
concern on his road, that steel rails might be secured for the line.
The result fully justified his action.
The question of a substitute for iron rails upon the Pennsylvania
Railroad and other leading lines had become a very serious one. Upon
certain curves at Pittsburgh, on the road connecting the Pennsylvania
with the Fort Wayne, I had seen new iron rails placed every six weeks
or two months. Before the Bessemer process was known I had called
President Thomson's attention to the efforts of Mr. Dodds in England,
who had carbonized the heads of iron rails with good results. I went
to England and obtained control of the Dodds patents and recommended
President Thomson to appropriate twenty thousand dollars for
experiments at Pittsburgh, which he did.
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