Krupp and American Railroads

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Being the armchair historian that I am (Have you ever studied the history of armchairs?? Fascinating…) in all seriousness, I have some questions that perhaps some of our astute railroad historians can answer for me.

I study WWII, pretty much in depth, and one cannot study that subject, without running across the name of Krupp. Krupp was the premier steel maker in Europe throughout the late 1800’s through the 1960’s, as well as Germany’s armorer since about 1866. Alfred Krupp invented/perfected the breech-loading "guhstahl kannonen" (cast-steel cannon) in 1854. They were used in combat, for the first time in 1866, and were used to defeat France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

How does Krupp figure into American railroads? A fair portion of the rails used on America’s first railroads in the 1850’s came from Krupp, as well as from Armstrong in England, but the majority came from Krupp. Alfred Krupp was the inventor of the “seamless railroad tire”, prior to that, “railroad tires” were welded (how, I don’t know). In fact, Krupp sold more of those wheels to American and European customers, than he did to the Prussian State Railway, because of his squabbling with one August von der Heydte, the Prussian Bank Minister, and, as I understand it, responsible for issuing patents. The use of kruppstahl rails and such on North American railroads is fairly well documented, well, fairly well documented over in Europe, that is. Most of the source material (which is not with me, as I am at work) that I have documenting this comes from European sources, as well as the book “The Arms of Krupp” By William Manchester.

Now, I have yet to find an American source that backs this up. Perhaps I havent’ looked hard enough. My dad was a big railroad buff in his lifetime, and he had a pretty good collection of books, as well as my younger brother. In

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Yahwohl – Krupp ran the world – back then.

The Second World War occurred.

What else do you want to know?

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Renowned industrialist Gustav Krupp was declared medically unfit to stand trial at the Neurumberg war criminal trials.

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Ah, rails-they just don’t get no respect. I would guess (and that’s all it would be) that rails were too much of a commodity to get any notice of who they were imported from. England or Germany, Bessemer or Krupp didn’t make any difference to the Purchasing Department as long as the price was right (assuming both were of similar quality). Once the line was built, people would notice the trains that ran on them and the locomotives that pulled them rather than the rails they ran on. Who notices much about rails even today?

You might find more information looking at any RR’s that had German (or Dutch?) financial backing. That might have steered their rail purchases to the Continent.

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The production, location of manufacture, and installation of rails (by ton of each rail section and other pertinent details) is collected annually in various forms by railroads, steel industry trade associations, and the government. This information might be on line, somewhere, but there’s no catalog of the internet and Google is almost worthless for common-word search terms like “rail, U.S., and imports.” For relief of frustration a good university library with open stacks has all this available at your fingertips.

Where I would start is the Annual Statistical Report of the American Iron & Steel Institute, which tracks back to 1873, and Edwin Frickey, Production in the United States, 1860-1914, Harvard University Press, 1947. These sources give detailed statistics on the total production of steel and iron rail in the U.S., from which I could derive the imported quantity by subtracting the total consumption from the Statistical Abstract of the United States published by the U.S. Census Bureau every decade. Export and import records maintained by the Department of Commerce, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies can show where rail came from by port of origin, and the AISI statistics might too.

The Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 lists U.S. rail production from 1876 to 1970: output rose from 880,000 tons in 1876 to 1,793,000 on 1886, 2,672,000 in 1900, to 4,072,000 in 1910. Other sources on my bookshelves indicate the preponderance of imported rail came from England and imports went to nil during the 1870s, a statement which the Historical Statistics would tend to support, but there’s no citations for that information so I have no way of assessing its veracity.

S. Hadid

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This post brought to you by an old mans fading memory.

Krup made their fortune in railroad tires more than rails but by the turn of last century their quality control had gone out the window and the business declined.

The logo for Krupp was three interlocking rings ment to signify the railroad business.

After the franco prussian war europe looked at the logo and saw three canons pointing at them. :slight_smile:

The fear was justified, Krupp found out that being a merchant of death paid a lot better than the locomotive parts business.

Fast forward to 1957.

C&O railroad had contracted with Krupp to build a new coal loader at Toledo Ohio, C&O # 4, AKA Sputnik dock.

the public was not amused and there were local protests against using a war criminnal co. to design and build it.

Nontheless it was done and it remains a engineering work of art (for a coal dumper).

4 dumps two 100 ton cars at a time

traveling shiploader so you don`t have to winch the ship back and forth

at the time the belt could load 4000 tph.

At that time our ships were only 600 feet or so,15,000 ton capy, so we could load in less than four hours.

Seamen hated it because it cut port time in half.

IIRC Krupp is/was highly involved in mining engineering endeavours.

kurt

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Okay…

Well, here is what I have researched, since last night, and this morning, some (very little, actually) from the web, and the rest from what I have at home…

Krupp signed a contract with Thomas Prosser in 1851, for not only rail, but Alfred’s “seamless railroad tires”, in addition, Krupp made springs, drawbars, axles, as well as a host of road tools. Customers included: the CB&Q, Central New Haven Railroad, Michigan Central, Chicago and Northwestern, The Erie, and the Boston & Maine. Many railroads were equpping their cars with the wheels, in addition to buying rail. In fact, the Canadian Pacific Railway advertised that “Krupp Steel is used exclusively throughout the CPR system for your safety”. In addition, I found evidence supporting the fact that EH Harriman, placed an order with Krupp for 25,000 tons of 80lb rail, (How long that would last, I have no idea) In 1874, Krupp shipped no less than 175,000 tons of rail to east coast ports. Now, I have no idea what the percentage is (How far would 175.000 tons of 80lb rail go??) of total usage that 175,000 tons represents, but, it would seem to me a significant contribution.

My research seems to indicate that the railroad wheels were in use more than the rail was, in fact, I found that the volume of sales was running into “several million dollars” annually, as quoted in “The Arms of Krupp” by William Manchester. Schneider of France, and Armstrong of England were grossing roughly a half a million dollars a year from US railroads, they were out paced a good 3 or 4 to 1 by Krupp…

There isn’t really a lot to look at on the web regarding this, as Mr. Hadid said, Googling it doesn’t turn up much. Even googling “Krupp”+rail+US Railroads, or something similar, doesn’t garner much either. But, all of that said, Mr. Manchester came across all of this back in the 60’s when he was researching

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Because European authors, when they think about such matters at all, often have another agenda, to reassure themselves that the economic success of the U.S. was a sort of accident of nature and/or unintended consequence of European commercial helpfulness, while U.S. authors, when they think about such matters, often have another agenda, to reinforce the Horatio Alger mythology of American exceptionalism and independence. You got me why so many people are so insecure.

But I will guarantee you that 98% of the authors of what you can find on the market today published on the history of railroads in the U.S. never even knew such a question existed. That’s because their output is not history at all, nor anything that any actual historian would recognize as such, only a collection of regurgitated and incomplete facts and unverified anecdote by people unarmed with education, training, or critical thinking skills. And of the railroad supply industry, to say nothing of railroad engineering or railroad business, these people apparently have no time to spare from their churning out of scrapbooks monumentalizing their nostalgia and ego. It’s not an anti-German bias among U.S. rail authors; it’s their apathy toward the fundamentals of the business of railroading. Try and find more than 1% of the flood of flossy titles on the bookshelf that tell you anything new about any particular railroad or the railroad industry.

175,000 tons i

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These railroad books are not “assembled” to further the cause of understanding, enriching, extending and preserving historical knowledge. Rather, they are produced in assembly-line fashion to make money.

What you have written above is among the most astute and accurate observations of today’s “instant gratification journalism” I’ve ever seen.

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Mr. Hadid…

I have to “ditto” what Poppa said up there. [#ditto][#ditto]

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Just wanted to make sure NO ONE missed this part. Heh-heh. [:D]

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Good grief.

A Historian is a professional. Most of the books and references on this thread are 1) tertiary sources, and 2) not written by professionals.

Why the sources of a particular commodity for an industry from a period over 150 years ago might not be “common knowledge” ought to be a question that answers itself. How could it be?

And it’s nobodys fault, nor shoddy book writing, that general publications do not contain that information today. A book filled with such arcana would not be a seller.

But, that does not mean that real Historians have not been busy, and they continue to publish in the usual places that professionals publish.

U.S. iron companies supplied the paltry U.S. rail market with a poor product prior to the Civil War, when the market for rails began to take off. U.S. suppliers could only roll about 5,000 tons a year, and by 1869, when 100,000 tons of steel rails had been used by U.S. railroads, most of that came from overseas – about half from John Brown’s, a Sheffield manufacturer, some from Cammell’s, another Sheffield producer, and the remainder mostly from Krupp. This was the period 1861-1869.

Between 1869 and 1873, an average of 5,348 miles of new railroad were built annually, using 667,000 tons of U.S. iron rails, 66,000 tons of U.S. steel rail, and 391,000 tons of foreign iron and steel rail. At that time, most of Krupp’s production was used internally, as Germany had become a net importer of steel. Krupp itself pric

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There is a book, all be it an old one by now. William Manchester worte on the Krupp Dynasty in the early to mid 60’s. It is a long and labor intensive read. Known as The Arms of Krupp. Manchester takes a more up east American View of the Iron Meisters of Essen. I read it way back int he dark ages of the early 70’s as required reading to get through a grad course on Modern Germany. F. Krupp did make many of the premium rails for not just U.S. roads but for roads all over the world. They were also instrumental in what was a German view of colonial expansion involving diamonds, cobalt and industrial overlordship in the colonies of the Kaiser. Commonly known as Reilpolotick. If Mark Hemphill or other quailfied member needs to clairify the lions memory, please feel free. Good to be back in the forum. PL

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NH had 100 lb Krupp rail, rolled in the 1920s.
Krupp made a proposal to B&M in 1928 for a bunch of diesel road locos.