Library of Congress and perhaps elsewhere. 16, 1850, machine for making hook-headed and other wrought-iron spikes.Įxcerpt: The nature of 'my invention and improvement consists in a new and useful combination and arrangement of mechanical devices, and modes of operating the same, by which the spike is cut from the heated rod, gripped and held firmly between horizontal dies-bent down at one end and hook- headed and rolled out longitudinally at the other end, and pointed between an inclined stationary and a rolling die, the several operations being performed almost simultaneously and at every revolution of a cam shaft, operated by steam or other power, by which hook spikes of a superior character are produced. Hardaway, Moore, MAKING SPIKES US Patent No.28, 1849 device for making railroad spikes.īelow: White's 1849 rotating railroad spike machine patent image. Meyers, Rolland, Date Nails, retrieved 7, original source: White, Edwin B., ROTATING SPIKE MACHINE US Patent No.Journal of the Franklin Institute, of the State of Pennsylvania, for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts Devoted to Mechanical and Physical Science, Civil Engineering, the Arts and Manufactures, and the Recording of American and Other Patent Inventions (1828-1851) Philadelphia Vol. Journal of the Franklin Institute, of the State of Pennsylvania, for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts Devoted to Mechanical and Physical Science, Civil Engineering, the Arts and Manufactures, and the Recording of American and Other Patent Inventions (1828-1851), 13(3), 183.
HARVEY, Jamestown, Chataque county, New York, September 16, 1832.Ī copy of this hand-written patent is on display at the Franklin Institute in whose Journal it appeared. Specification of a patent for an improvement in Nails and Spikes, denominated the Grooved and Flanched Spike. Continent the volume of spikes needed to secure rails to ties was so enormous that hand-forging these fasteners would not have been reasonable.īut those off-set or "hook-headed" spikes may date from about 1850.īelow we recount two of the earliest US patents of railroad spike or hook-headed spike machines. So although you might expect to find a railroad spike that's hand forged but in our opinion that'd be uncommon.Ĭonsider that by the time railroads were being built across the U.S. Railroad spikes may have been hand-forded in small quantity, but almost immediately the need for railway spike producing machines would have been evident. railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, chartered in 1827, didn't really begin operation until 1830 when the first fourteen miles of track were completed. The first actual charter for a railroad in the United States was granted to Stevens in 1815, but surveying and construction on the first U.S. was constructed in 1764 for military purposes at the Niagara portage in Lewiston, New York. The earliest railroad of any form in the U.S. Early Railroad Spike Patent History: 1834 & Later the transcontinental railroad was completed on when the last spike, "the golden spike", was driven into a tie at Promtory Summit, Utah. Photos above and below: traditional railroad spikes in-use - from However a patent for railroad spikes search finds slightly-later dates and inventors for citation, as we illustrate below. Stevens is also credited with invention of the T-shaped rail on which rail cars run. Invention of the railroad spike is credited to Robert Livingston Stevens, president of the Camden & Amboy Railroad, and first used in the U.S. The larger lip of the offset head on these large spikes, also called crampons, was used to secure the bottom edge of the rail to the steel plate upon which the rail rests.Īs the railroad spike is driven through the plate and onwards into the railroad tie or (sleeper), the combination of spike, tie-plate, and sleeper hold the rail in place in the stone-covered bed (ballast) of the railway. In our images above and also in Alyssa's railroad spike photos shown here you'll notice that the head of these large railroad spikes sport an offset head. Railroad Spikes: history, identification, age, usesġ832 - Present: Cut Spikes, Railroad Spikes & Offset Head Nails
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#RAILROAD SPIKE SERIES#
This article series describes and illustrates antique & modern hardware: door knobs, latches, hinges, window latches, hardware, nails & screws can help determine a building's age by noting how those parts were fabricated: by hand, by machine, by later generations of machine. History & identification of railroad spikes: types, patents, photos, uses.
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