It is started on its journey along the rollers of the mill, squeezed and pressed here and there, as it travels hundreds of yards—no hand ever touching it. It finally arrives, a red-hot steel rail, the right shape and the right length.
During this time the steel has made a long journey and changed from a shapeless ingot to a finished rail, handled entirely by machinery guided and controlled by one or two operators, pressing levers and switches.
When almost finished, the rail slides down an incline before a man who grasps the rail with huge pinchers, and standing at one end, runs his eye along it. As he looks along the rail he sees the defects, moves the left or the right hand, and another man at the levers of the straightening machine, straightens the rail as directed.
And soon there are ten rails, perfectly straight, side by side, with more coming down the incline to meet the glance of the man’s eye.
They are still too hot for any man’s touch and so a man sitting in a tower touches an electric switch, and along the overhead rails there comes gliding a monster electro-magnet.
The magnet moves along, drops down upon the ten rails, lying side by side and weighing thousands of pounds. The man in the tower presses another switch, thus turning on the current, and electricity glues the rails to the magnet.
By permission, from "Solenoids" by C. R. Underhill. Lifting-Magnets of the type known as Plate, Billet, and Ingot Magnets.
The ten rails are lifted at once, as easily as you would lift a needle with your horseshoe magnet; they are carried to a flat-car, and when lowered in position, the current is turned off, releasing the rails, and the magnet travels back for another load.