| Mr. Edward W.
McKenna, a railroad operating executive, secured
a U.S. Patent for
"renewing" worn steel rails. His idea was to rejuvenate a
worn
railroad track by rolling the rails with as little loss in weight as
possible and using them again in the same track. He interested
men
with money and founded a company, "The
Pioneer Rail Renewing
Company." A plant was built at Joliet, Illinois, and put into
operation in 1897. I graduated from Yale University that year and
took a job as draughtsman in the Fall, in the Master Mechanic's Office
of the Chicago Great Western Railway In February, 1898, I learned
that Mr. McKenna was looking for young men to learn the rail-renewing
business. So I went from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and met Mr. McKenna. He offered me a job at $60 a
month and I accepted. I went to Chicago, Illinois, in March, 1898. |
| When I went to
Joliet, Illinois,
in 1898, then and for long after, I heard much in praise of the McKenna
Process Company's method of renewing worn railroad rail.
Successful businessmen were putting much money into it. The new
business
would soon spread over the whole United States, and eventually into all
parts of the world. Its promoters were supremely confident of
success, enough so to put their fortunes into it. The Joliet mill
was operating, and another mill was to be built in Kansas City,
Kansas. Rail renewing was receiving much publicity, and railroad
executives were rapidly becoming interested. Such was the picture
before me when I went to Joliet in March, 1898. |
| My first job was
little better
than than a laborer's but it enabled me to learn very soon just what
the McKenna rail renewing process was. It seemed rather simple,
and yet there were difficulties that appeared to me more and more
serious as I acquired familiarity with all of the plant
operations. The worn rails were heated, then rolled in two passes
which stretched them sufficiently to cut off a foot of each worn end,
leaving the renewed rail 30 feet long as it was before. It sounds
easy, but not even the McKenna process could ignore fixed habits in the
Metallurgy
of Steel.
The renewed rails should have looked and
acted like new ones, but they did neither. Day after day I saw
them inspected and shipped, with only one thought in my mind.
They must be made better and soon, before railroad men became alive to
the fact that renwed rails are not as they should be. |
| In 1898 the McKenna
Steel Working Company comprised the Joliet mill and one at
Kansas City, Kansas, nearing completion. In August the Joliet
mill shut down for lack of business, and I was sent to Kansas City to
be night foreman of the Finishing Department. Things went along
there as they had been going at Joliet. Renewed rails did not
impress me at all favorably, due to the rules in Metallurgy of
Steel. I mean by this that in its great sensitiveness to heating,
rolling, cooling and cold finishing, the steel reacted in so many
unpleasant ways that the production of sound new rails was forever
running into difficulties. These difficulties encountered to some
extent in new rail manufacture were greatly accentuated in renewing,
due mainly to two things: the difficulty of properly heating a long
rail; and the inefficient work of reshaping the section in only two
rolling passes. |
| The McKenna
Company officials
were aware that plant operations at Joliet and Kansas City were
imperfect and that the finished rails needed improvement, but their
minds were filled with one idea; that rail-renewing was a wonderful
thing and therefore railroad men must favor it. The Kansas city
plant shut down in the Fall of 1898 for lack of business, and I was
sent back to Joliet to operate there as Finishing Mill Foreman, then
Master Mechanic, and finally, Assistant Superintendent. |
| The McKenna
Company now had the
two plants, neither of which was operating steadily, but in spite of
that, the promoters organized a much larger concern, The
American
McKenna Process Company, capitalized
at 10 million dollars, and
plans
were made for a third and larger plant at Tremley, near Elizabethport,
New Jersey. There was no sales department, nor any pretense of
determining from railroad men what volume of business might be
expected. The promoters treated that as a minor detail.
Rail-renewing would sell itself wherever there was a mill to do the
work. I was sent to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, early in 1901 to
help build the machinery for the Tremley plant; and I went to Tremley
in the Summer of 1901, in charge of construction. The mill was
built close to Staten Island Sound. It was marsh land, and the
concrete foundations were put on piles driven into the soft
ground. Then barge loads of garbage and street sweepings from New
York City were brought in to make a 10 foot thickness of newly made
ground. It was like building a rolling mill on a mattress, as I
realized only too well when finally the plant was completed and put
into operation about 1903. |
| Although there
was very little
business in sight, the McKenna Company promoters had launched another
venture, the English McKenna Process Company, with a completely
separate group of investors. However the Kansas City plant still
went under the old name of McKenna
Steel Working Company. We
opened up the Tremley plant on two small orders of rails; one from the
Baltimore & Ohio; and the other from the D.L & W. One
shipment of B&O rails in carloads on a barge wrecked the float end
of our big transfer bridge, and about ten, fifty ton gondolas fully
loaded were piled up at the bottom of the Sound. It took the Merritt-Chapman
Wrecking Company about two weeks to clear up the mess
with their largest floating derrick and a diver, working not merely in
15 feet of water but also 15 feet more of soft mud below that.
But the mill finally got going on its small orders and finished them
after no end of difficulties, and I was then ordered back to Joliet to
start operations there. The Company's three mills were operating only
one at a time and very spasmodically. Railroads were slow in
recognizing the merits of the McKenna process for renewing worn rails. |
| The new venture
launched near
Birkenhead in England was evidence that the promoters were still
holding to their main idea of building plants and staking their all on
the assumption that railroads must come to them from necessity. That
the railroads were not doing so to any great extent was disappointing
and suggested that perhaps the sales end of the business needed more
attention. So a Sales Department was organized and got going full
steam ahead. But in the five years of jumping from place to
place, operating three mills spasmodically, a haunting spectre growing
larger and more threatening confronted me at every turn - The
Metallurgy of Steel. The McKenna Company must master that to
attain success. |
| The Promotion
and Sales
Department did not take this viewpoint very seriously. All new
manufacturing processes had many initial difficulties which had to be
ironed out before things got running smoothly. The idea of rail
renewing was of course fundamentally sound; sales were being pushed;
and manufacturing problems would be solved as the three mills secured
enough business for full time operation. And when I expressed my
doubts, I was reminded emphatically that I was only Assistant
Superintendent with a rather small experience, and that older and wiser
heads than mine would deal with the important problems. |
| None of the
three mills were
operating in 1904, and so I assisted in draughting the plans for the
new mill in England. Much of it was badly planned and designed in
my opinion, and building another mill to me seemed like the height of
folly. The promoters had yet to learn that even their business
wisdom backed with money might not succeed in convincing railroad
executives that rail renewing was a prime necessity. However, the
English McKenna Company was distinct from the American McKenna Company,
although both had the same promoters, and what they did was none of my
business. My superiors made that clear to me. Then things
happened to bring about a change. |
| This was in
1904. My boss,
the General Superintendent, was to go to England in the Fall as
Consulting Engineer to get the mill at Birkenhead into operation and
stay there until the engineers were familar with the McKenna
process. I was to remain in the U.S. to take charge of our three
mills. I was to have an assistant. But then the
Kaw and Missouri
rivers went on a rampage and buried our Kansas City mill under 10
feet
of water and mud. That flood did an immense amount of damage to Kansas
City, Kansas, Armourdale,
Argentine,
and other places. It
devolved upon me to get to our Kansas City mill and repair the
damage. The flood was still on when I got there, but when it
subsided, I got men to work removing the mud and debris and putting the
machinery into running condition. |
| When I returned
to Joliet, my
boss, the General Superintendent, had disappeared. He was gone
two weeks, then came back to our office for a few hours, just long
enough to give me the keys and say good-bye. He was dissatisfied
and quit without notice. I fell heir to his job. I operated
the Kansas City mill, then the Joliet mill on small orders, and was
finally advised by the promoters that they wanted me to go to England
in the Fall as Consulting Engineer. I did not want the job and
said so. I had plenty to do in the U.S., but they wanted me to go
to England, and so I went in October. 1904. In some ways it was a
rather pleasant experience. Being
in an advisory capacity without
authority or responsibility, I could enjoy life in England. But
the mill was a nightmare, rapidly going from bad to worse.
Then
in July, 1905. they cabled me to take the first boat back to the
U.S. Things were going badly at Joliet. I sailed for home
on the Campania.
The trouble was the same old spectre that ever
hovered about to bedevil me - The Metallurgy of Steel. Renewed
rails could not pass inspection. I has a tough time of it getting
the Joliet mill clear of the mess it was in but got through it all
somehow. Things went better, but not good enough. Railroad
men were beginning to find that renwing rails was a dubious economy. |
| The English mill
and company
soon passed out of the picture, and that investment was more than a
total loss. That ended further building of mills. The McKenna
Company was doomed from then on. I was sent to various places
seeking old heavy rail for rerolling and found only poor stuff as a
rule unsuited for our purpose. "Renewing" worn heavy rails made
no hit with railway engineers, and no business of that kind developed. |
| It is much
easier to judge looking backward than looking ahead. We make
mistakes because we cannot foresee difficulties that turn us from the
right course. I do not mean difficulties that everyone encounters
at one time or another, but the difficulties of a course whose
principal attention was then concentrated on sales - an endeavor to see
and interest railroad executives. I took considerable part in
that, but there was something else looming up to worry about.
This was my old bugbear, The
Metallurgy of Steel, grown a
lot bigger
and more threatening in the form of Open Hearth steel rails. |
| Until about 1908
our experience had been with Bessemer rails entirely. Steel, made
by the Bessemer process, was inclined to be soft. Bessemer rails
did not wear well under increasingly heavy traffic, and before 1900
railroads had been trying out steel rails made by the Basic Open Hearth
process. These Open Hearth rails were of increased carbon
content, which made them harder. It also made them more sensitive
to reheating, an important step in the McKenna process. The
reheating temperature had to be lowered below that of Bessemer rails;
otherwise, when renewed, the rails would be brittle and liable to break
in track. However, this lower temperature made rolling difficult
with light draughts and only two passes and accentuated our former
difficulties with twisted and crooked rails, badly sawed ends, too
rapid roll wear and other unpleasant things that rail mill operators
were familiar with. |
| When Open Hearth
rails began to come to us for renewing, I was in for a bad time.
After a long shut-down, I had to open up the New Jersey mill on an
order of Open Hearth rails. The mill had not been operated enough
to find and cure its numerous mechanical imperfections, and these
occupied about 90% of our attention, all of which should have been
concentrated on those Open Hearth rails. The result was brittle
rails, crooked rails and what not. We had several other short
runs at the New Jersey plant later on that did better but not well
enough to avoid breakage in track. The eastern railroads soon had
their fill of rail renewing. |
| Both
the New
Jesey and Kansas mills were shut down indefinitely and all devolved
upon the Joliet mill. From about 1910 to 1917 we still received
many Bessemer rails and increasing numbers of Open Hearth rails.
We segregated the latter and nursed them along as carefully as we could
but not without ever fully mastering their obstinacies. McKenna
Company executives were now fully alive to the fact that renewing old
rails must fail if the metallurgical difficulties remained unsolved,
for our business would soon be concerned with Open Hearth rails
entirely. Newly made Open Hearth rails were beginning to worry
railroad men with "transverse fissures" [now known
as hydrogen flakes -
George, III] which caused
sudden breakage in track. Their worry
on that score did not help matters any. We did many things to
coddle Open Hearth rails along, and some of these things seemed for a
time to breathe new life into the McKenna process's failing
health. I tried out successfully a new method of rolling [see US
Patent No. 1,212,364 - US
Patent No. 1,212,365 and US
Patent No. 1,212,964 -
George, III] to
overcome the difficulties of working steel at low temperatures.
This enthused our western railroad sufficiently to give us business for
a time at the Kansas mill. Another railroad joined in a bit
later, and several others in the Chicago region favored the new method
and gave us some business. |
| However, our greatest reprieve came from new practices in rail straightening [see US Patent No. 1,314,877 - George, III] which involved a method of cooling the hot rails and straightening them when cold in presses with widely spaced anvil supports. These new practices attracted the attention of the most prominent engineer of one of our largest railroads, and our Joliet mill became a sort of guinea pig to try out these new methods for use in the much larger field of new rail manufacture. When these methods were finally adopted in the country's rail mills, our Joliet plant had served its purpose. The World War had come and gone and our big rail customer was still with us. Then came [in 1922 - George, III] the E.J. & E. Ry. [Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway - George, III] Shopmen's Strike, when our mill operated for two months full tilt, but unable to ship anything in or out. The Sheriff was shot and badly wounded, and an assistant and a striker killed at our very door. Then the troops came and camped around us to preserve order; and finally our big eastern railroad customer left us cold. |
| We acquired
another customer, a western railroad. A new method of hot
straightening revived things, but only briefly. When we passed
into 1923, the McKenna jig was up. The Metallurgy of Steel had us
licked. The McKenna process promoters had staked their fortunes
on an idea and had lost. They might have first tried out the idea
with only the one Joliet mill to determine the practicability of the
idea, but they did not choose to do that. The renewing of worn
rails was to become more and more impractical as the volume, speed and
weight of traffic increased and called for better rails.
Rail-renewing could not keep up with the improvements demanded by The
Metallurgy of Steel. It was not in the cards. For 25 years
I had been bucking my head against a stone wall. |
| Then, late in
1924, something else bobbed up. I conceived the idea of renewing
or re-forming worn rail joint bars with press and dies [see US Patent No. 1,659,776 -
George, III]. The
McKenna Company Directors approved, and so I
designed and built a bar-re-forming plant. We got going late in
1925 and ran into all sorts of trouble, which we ironed out bit by
bit. The Old Metallurgy of Steel reared its ugly head
again. Our re-formed Open Hearth bars were too brittle, and it
appeared that many of them had acquired a tiny crack while in
service. This crack was in the middle of the top and would cause
the bar to break when re-formed and used again. But we found out
how to cure these ailments and did cure them [see US
Patent No. 1,712,506 and US
Patent No. 1,732,650;
see also the ultimate splice-bar
reforming practice that evolved under George, Sr.'s, watchful eyes
-
George, III]. |
| Throughout the
period from 1929 to
1943, we continued the kind of business which I was trying hard not to
believe was fundamentally unsound. With the change from soft to
hard, higher carbon steel, the renewing of steel railroad rails was
doomed. For as far back as 1920 I was fearful of that, but we
continued with the hope that we could beat it with improvements in our
methods. The main difficulty, as became evident later, was that
we could not renew high carbon rails successfully without overheating
and injuring the steel. The re-forming of worn joint bars
promised
success for a time, but that, too, became a flop when cutthroat
competition got under way. Our
numerous patents simply got us
involved with the Rail
Joint Company. For a time we rode the
crest, then came down with a bang. |
| There were legal
battles with
the Bert Lentz - A. Schupp Company backed by George Woodruff, Lawrence
Wilbur and his outfit at Aurora, Illinois, and Schaeffer, who
eventually moved his company to Fort Worth, Texas. All this got
into the Rail Joint
Company's hair. When I stuck my neck out with
the Sellers Company and invited a suit in 1937, the McKenna Company
took a bad beating. We might have saved something out of the
wreck with a more judicious handling of the McKenna - Blatchfield
decision in our favor, but our attorney William D. Heise died in 1941,
and when John Newhall of Aurora took over, nothing was done until the
F.B.I. stepped in and slapped, first a criminal suit, and then a civil
suit upon us. The Rail Joint Company and licensees stepped out,
and the McKenna Company was left holding the bag. We lost the
civil suit before Judge Barnes in Chicago; the McKenna Company slowly
breathed its last; and that about washed up my approximately 45 years
of life in a business that I should never have gotten into. [See George, Jr.'s history of
McKenna - George, Jr. had a less emotional response
to this episode than did George, Sr. - George, III] |
| However, in 1943 the McKenna still breathed, although feebly, drawing some income from its numerous patents, also considerable litigation in respect to those patents. In the period 1943 to 1946, the McKenna office and mill land remained to be dispersed. The office became a target for young hoodlums who smashed the windows and even the tile roof, but I finally sold it to Freeman, who made it his junk-shop. |
| The
mill land was not ours; so it proved. The E.J. & E. Ry. had
strings attached to it in their deed of about 1897. Nobody in the
McKenna Company appeared to be aware of that. We finally got
$1000 which the E.J. & E. considered to be blackmail because we
could not give them a quit-claim for nothing. Judge Barnes'
decision in Chicago had made our patents worthless. That washed
things up. The Charter of the McKenna Company was revoked, and
the McKenna Company was given an unwept but decent burial. |
| Had we continued reforming bars, I think that we would have licked Old Metallurgy of Steel completely. Our problems were much the same as with rails, although we could succeed with short bars where we failed with long rails. Long lengths were the most troublesome feature. In 1896 the Joliet Mill was designed to handle the standard length of 30 feet. The standard was later increased to 33 feet and then to a still longer length. The rail joint bars were only 2 to 3-1/2 feet long, easy to heat and manipulate; those things were very difficult to do with long rails. |
| Strangely
enough, the McKenna process has been primarily concerned with
rail joints from beginning to end. McKenna's conception of
renewing rails was mostly concerned with a renewal of the joint.
It was then common practice for railroads to repair worn track by
taking up the rails, cutting a foot or so off of the worn and battered
ends; drilling new bolt holes; and then putting the rails back into
track, the rail lengths being shortened by this method. The
McKenna process rolled a 30 foot rail to about 32 feet, then sawed off
about 1 foot of each battered end, making the rail 30 feet long, as it
was in the first place. The railroad practice of repairing worn
rail joints has been largely discontinued, now that worn rail joints
can be repaired and battered rail ends restored by welding on metal. |
| The McKenna
process failed dismally in bringing prosperity to those who promoted
it, and yet it contributed in very large measure to railroad
maintenance, which profited by its various experiences and
disclosures. In that it was successful, although that was no
comfort to those who invested in the McKenna Company. |
| And I might
conclude with my own personal opinion of rerolling, renewing or
reforming worn rails, bars and other steel shapes to their original
usage or into other steel shapes. Old Metallurgy of Steel is a
hard taskmaster. Perhaps these worn-out appliances would do
better if consigned to the melting-pot where they could begin anew,
starting from scratch. |