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.