Have an idea for Bob Wilhelm’s Q&A or want to share your insights? Email Bob at Questions@AuburnHeights.org.
PUZZLED
Folks visiting Auburn Valley State Park learn of the Garrett family that first 
settled in the area in 1726 followed by the Marshall family 33 years later. Descendants of both families established water-powered grist and saw mills along the Red Clay Creek which served as a stepping stone to becoming significant enterprises manufacturing snuff and paper. There is one other Delaware family, the Pusey family, that got their start on the same 2-mile stretch of the Red Clay. The Puseys later became Delaware’s largest manufacturers of cotton fabric products in the mid-1800s in Wilmington.
The Auburn/Yorklyn Puseys, related to the Pusey family that founded Pusey & Jones in Wilmington, were awarded multiple patents for improvements to spinning machines and for ice-making equipment. It is a patent of Joseph Pusey, a descendent of Jacob Pusey who owned Auburn Mill, that stands out as unique in that the patent is not for a machine or has anything to do with machinery or the textile industry or anything typical of what the various Pusey companies were involved in. The greater Pusey family business interests in Wilmington included textiles, ship building, railroad equipment, papermaking equipment of which some is in Auburn Factory, and industrial machinery. The non-business nature of this patent is way off the beaten trail of typical Pusey patents. What was Joseph’s patent for? As a hint, it is something designed for children however many adults might find it of interest.
Answer
In the early 1730s, settler John Garrett constructed a grist mill that resides today as the core of Marshall Brothers Paper Mill as perhaps some of the interior basement walls. Garrett eventually moved downstream on the Red Clay Creek a half mile to construct a snuff mill leaving the grist mill to his son Horatio Gates Garrett to operate as a paper mill. Horatio, for reasons lost in the cobwebs of time, was unsuccessful, perhaps because he couldn’t compete with the economies of scale present in Wilmington’s papermaking industry. On February 16, 1813 the original Garrett h
omestead and mill was sold at Sheriff’s Sale for $14,450 to Thomas Lea, a prosperous flour miller on Brandywine Creek. Lea’s nephew, Jacob Pusey, had an interest in the cotton trade and convinced his uncle to let him use the Garrett mill for making cotton fabrics for hosiery use. Lea referred to the former Garrett mill as Auburn Mill a name which is believed to have given rise to the area being called Auburn.
Jacob outfitted Auburn Mill by early 1814 with 1,224 spindles and other supporting textile machinery. He soon employed 43 workers. The mill employed 6 men, earning $6 per week (an 1830s work week being 6 working days of 11 hours/day); 12 women, earning $2 per week; and 25 children, earning $1.25 per week. After Lea dies around 1824, his widow sells some of Lea’s mills to reduce debt including the former Garrett mill and its 114-acres to Jacob Pusey for $10,500. By the early 1830s, Pusey’s Mill at Auburn as it is now known, is processing 70,000 and 100,000 lbs. of cotton into fabric per year primarily used for hosiery. Below is a modern photo of a similar English textile factory resembling what the inside of Pusey’s cotton mill at Auburn may have looked like.
In later years, Jacob’s sons Joseph Mendenhall Pusey and Edward Pusey, who were born in the Horatio Garrett home off what was then called Old Public Road (now Benge Road), took responsibility for daily operation of Pusey’s Mill at Auburn. With business booming, Jacob and son Joseph M. established a cotton wadding and cotton rope manufactory at Front and Tatnall Streets leaving brothers Lea and Edward to operate Pusey’s Mill on the Red Clay. Needing additional manufacturing space, the Pusey family purchased land at 13th and Poplar (now Clifford Brown Walk) Streets in Wilmington in 1860 where they construct a new cotton milling and manufacturing plant.
In 1868 the Pusey’s Delaware Cotton Mill, alternately called Wilmington Cotton Mill, a modern steam-powered, state-of-the-art textile mill along the Brandywine Creek, outproduced Auburn’s Pusey’s Mill resulting in the water powered Red Clay mill being offered for sale. Purchased by William & James Clark, they repurposed the mill for wool instead of cotton still running on water power. The Clark brothers were familiar with the woolen trade as sons of Henry Clark who operated a woolen mill on Hyde Run near Greenbank.
After a fire in 1869 destroys Auburn Factory as the Clark’s named it, the mill was left vacant until 1880 when it was rebuilt by the Clarks. In 1886 William bought out James’ interest. Another fire in 1888 destroyed Auburn Factory. Auburn Factory caught the interest of Israel & Elwood Marshall and Franklin Ewart in 1890 for use as a paper mill. Marshall & Ewart Company would go on to rebuild Auburn Factory for the 3rd time and produce a special blend of cotton rag based industrial paper required for the manufacturing of vulcanized fiber.
While most may be familiar with Pusey & Jones Company along the Christina and Delaware Rivers which was owned and operated by relatives of Jacob Pusey, the Brandywine Creek Pusey operation eventually passed to Lea and Edward Pusey. A major cotton textile manufacturer employing more than one hundred workers at its peak, Pusey’s operation became the largest in the state by the late 1800s. Lea Pusey expanded his interests becoming a major bagged stove coal distributor in Wilmington between 1860 to 1880. By 1900 the nearly century old Pusey operation was no longer competitive with larger more efficient operations in the southern states and went into receivership.
In answering this month’s question some may have thought of another Pusey patent; for the matchbook. Joshua Pusey, yet another relative but a practicing lawyer from Lima, PA, loved cigars and hated carrying boxes of match sticks. He invented and patented the matchbook and Pusey & Jones developed the machinery to make the matchbooks.
The Pusey we’re thinking of in answer to our question is Joseph M. Pusey of Wilmington who patented a simple puzzle in 1907. The puzzle is presented as a square board with a hole drilled near each corner. With the board are two wooden dowels or posts with a pin or slot at one end, and two wooden dowels with a pin or slot at one end but also with short string attached, both strings being equal in length. With the posts inserted in the holes of the board, as stated in the patent, the object is to connect all the posts together with the two cords without lapping the cords or forming a double line of them in any direction, such that a cord covers each line of the X and the four sides of the [] (square) enclosing the X.
Would you like to try and solve Pusey’s Puzzle?
From the patent we’ve reproduced Figure One so that it can be printed out. Click on the image and print several copies of it or draw the equivalent freehand on a blank sheet of paper. In the center is a square box [] which contains an X. The object is to ‘shadow’ or ‘cover’ each of the black lines (X and [] ) only one time.
Using a Red pencil (or any color of your choice) start at the dark gray Pin 2 at the lower left and route a line to any of the three remaining posts. Continue on with the red line to a 2nd post and then on to your 3rd post covering one of the paths at the center of the panel with each stroke between pins. Then with a Blue pencil (or your color choice again) do the same thing starting with the lighter Pin 2 at the lower right and route a line to any one of the posts as you did with the first line. Continue on with the blue line to a 2nd post and then on to your 3rd post covering one of the paths at the center of the panel. As you route the line, don’t lift your pen until you touch three additional posts after leaving the lower left/right post. You may have a red and blue line together on any post however you may NOT have a parallel red and blue lines anywhere and a line once leaving the ‘2’ position can only contact the other posts one time!
Can’t figure it out? Send an email to questions ‘at’ auburnheights ‘dot’ org and we’ll send you the patent which includes the solution we’ve highlighted in color!
MISMATCHED STATION
This Month’s Q&A was submitted by FAH member, Elliott M. Warburton, a young historian attending A.I. DuPont High School.
Photographic records of the stations along the original Wilmington & Western Rail Road thankfully exist for all stations. Pictured is an Intaglio engraving produced print of the railroad’s first Wilmington Station (left) and Wilmington Freight Depot (right) from Lippincotts Magazine, April 1873 showing typical construction. We can confirm that the stations that once stood along the line were mostly identical, and all appeared similar to our community’s beloved Yorklyn Station. That is, except for one. There is one station, known to have stood alongside the Branch, that is completely different in design from not only Yorklyn Station, but every other station constructed along the line. It appears to be, in an 1895 photograph by Charles Philips, a two-story, peaked roof structure, with absolutely no similarities to Yorklyn Station or any of the others at all. What station is this, and why is it so different from any other station along the line?
Answer
Throughout the history of Yorklyn, there have been numerous structures that have architecturally become staples of the community. Within this category, we have places like Auburn Heights, various Garrett homes, and when looking back at what once was in Yorklyn, numerous ornate mills that emphasized architecture (Garrett Snuff Mill below; E. Christofano 1986) as much as they did production capabilities. One important structure, which is no longer within the boundaries of Yorklyn (but nevertheless holds much value to our community), is the Wilmington & Western Rail Road’s (WWRR) Yorklyn Station, which was moved to Greenbank in 1968. The structure was moved following Tom Marshall’s and other’s interest in the Baltimore & Ohio’s Landenberg Branch, to revive branch steam passenger service between Greenbank and Hockessin (Landenberg, the end of the original Wilmington & Western, was inaccessible by rail following the 1950s removal of the right-of-way after Valley Road in Hockessin).
But another reason the station was relocated was for proper preservation by dedicated enthusiasts. The only reason the station survived as long as it did was due to the freight services NVF still needed into the 1960’s, and the desire to have an office close to the primary remaining freight operation along the branch. Yorklyn Station was, in reality, one of nine nearly identical stations constructed by the first incarnation of the Wilmington & Western between its Wilmington origin, and it’s Landenberg terminus.
Ironically, for Landenberg station, constant relocation of the WWRR’s Wilmington Station eventually resulted in the first WWRR Wilmington Station being disassembled and reassembled in Landenberg to become Landenberg Station. As a result of the flat-roofed design of the stations, and the probability of lack of routine maintenance to all the stations in times of financial difficulty or when they were closed, Yorklyn Station became the sole surviving station by the mid-20th century. Hockessin Station, of similar design to Yorklyn Station, became the only remaining station when Hockessin Station was torn down in 1950.
The station in question, once standing near Mt. Cuba Road covered bridge, was the primary station for the Mt. Cuba community on the Christiana and Mill Creek Hundred sides of the Red Clay. It appears in an 1895 photograph by Charles Philips (shown right and close-up below, ca. 1890s, from Charles Philips Collection at Chester County Historical Society) as a two-story, peaked roof structure, with absolutely no similarities to Yorklyn Station at all. What makes Mt. Cuba’s station different from the station at Yorklyn can mainly be accredited to the fact that the structure was not actually erected by the original incarnation of the Wilmington & Western (1869-1877), but was a pre-existing structure, likely a private residence, repurposed for the railroad at Mt. Cuba.
Mt. Cuba Station actually represents a unique case in the original WWRR’s history when the company decided to use an existing structure for their infrastructure, rather than fabricate an entirely new building, as they had for every other depot along the line. Why the company may have chosen to do this may have been a result of their financial difficulties during the railroad’s construction, which possibly impaired the Company’s ability to erect a new station at Mt. Cuba (or Cuba Hill, a name often exchanged with Mt. Cuba until 1872). It is important to keep in mind that Mt. Cuba rock cut, the monstrously challenging final roadblock of the line, was within the vicinity of the station. On a railroad that started construction crews at Wilmington and Landenberg in 1871 and laid rails west and east respectively until they met at Mt. Cuba, further construction within the area had become a costly and potentially bankrupting effort for the railroad.
Another possible reason the structure may have been repurposed as a station could have been out of pure coincidence. It was in the Wilmington & Western’s best interest to build a railroad at least cost, or essentially, the easiest way possible. Unfortunately, the area around Mt. Cuba Road offers few places to go besides directly in front of what was then a private residence (see map below).
The residence, as deduced from maps and records, was likely constructed by one J. Curley between 1850 and 1865. The property changed hands from Curley to a more established Mt. Cuba resident, Thomas Vandever, sometime between 1868 and 1872. Vandever, a prosperous farmer in the Mt. Cuba area, may have seen the railroad’s approach as a chance to buy up as much land adjacent to the creek as possible in order to make a profit; a common real estate tactic at the time.
In the case of the “Curley Home,” Vandever perhaps saw the property as a chance to potentially provide a depot to the railroad in order to ship his and his neighbor’s farm goods at the least cost to the community. If a new station needed to be constructed, it might be expected a station might’ve been built farther away from the Mt. Cuba farmers. Because of this, Vandever likely purchased the home, and within a short time of his acquisition, released it to the railroad for official public use. This situation, using a pre-existing structure for a new and important role, provided a unique opportunity for the local community to use a structure in a multitude of different roles.
We commonly view Yorklyn Station as being utilitarian during its time in Yorklyn. Yorklyn Station was railroad property from its construction to its final days in its original home in 1968. But as for Mt. Cuba Station, after being a private residence, the structure became a focal point of community activities, not only providing a rail connection to Wilmington and beyond, but providing a place for auctions, public gatherings, and other events of interest. Not to mention, a system of sidings (north of Mt. Cuba Road, shown on map) at Mt. Cuba were some of the largest along the line that weren’t tied to production facilities like Garrett Snuff Mills or the Marshall Rolling Mills in Marshallton. Mt. Cuba Station acted as one of the most capable places along the line for processing livestock, farm products, and smaller local milling shipments. It is also known that the station acted as one of the major centers for the region’s milk shipments along the WWRR. Just beyond the station was a picnic grove, still in use today, that the Wilmington & Western used heavily for special events and excursions in the 1870s.
The appearance of the station as different and older, though contrary to railroad President Joshua Heald’s view on WWRR stations, is an important reminder to some of the decisions made by the Wilmington & Western Rail Road during its construction period. But more importantly to us, Mt. Cuba Station shows exactly how crucial these structures were for the communities they served. Though different in design, the Mt. Cuba Station still proved an important community center for Mt. Cuba, similar to how we have come to retrospectively view Yorklyn Station as the center of our community when we still had the chance to have it nearby.
With the closure of places like the Mt. Cuba Picnic Grove by 1900, the town lost an important tourist attraction that drew people to the community. A 1927 Baltimore & Ohio photograph of the station (above right), the best one that can be produced of the site, shows the aging structure falling into disrepair, far beyond any state of grandeur as an original WWRR station. Officially, a benchmark date for the “dissolution” of the Mt. Cuba community could be seen as July 15, 1933 when the community’s post office officially closed. Without passenger service, which had been discontinued in 1930, it is assumed the station and home fell into disrepair. Due to the absence of any visible infrastructure at Mt. Cuba revealed on Delaware State Aerial Photographs from 1937, it can be assumed the 80-year-old home and station were lost to the same fate as stations like Ashland, Hockessin, and Landenberg (pictured below just before razing; New Garden Historical Society), leaving Yorklyn Station as yet another important survivor of the railroading age of the Red Clay Valley.
THE SPRING MOTOR
When one visits Auburn Valley State Park to tour the Marshall mansion, the Marshall Steam Museum, or Marshall Brothers paper mill a visitor takes a trip back in time exploring living as it was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While visitors enjoy the contents of the mansion or a ride in a steam car, they often overlook the backstory that is being told. For example, docents are often asked, “How fast can a Stanley go?” In 1906 a Stanley set the world speed record of 127.6 miles per hour, but that was a special-purpose vehicle. On today’s roads a Stanley has no problem doing 35 MPH while maintaining boiler steam pressure. Visitors will often comment, “that’s slow” as they use today’s modern vehicle speeds as their comparison.
When reminded of the high-crown dirt roads of the early 20th century and that it was the late 1910s before Delaware started thinking about paving rural roads, visitors realize driving at speeds of more than perhaps 10 MPH on those rural roads produced a very bumpy and potentially hazardous travel experience. Horse-drawn carriages and stage coaches might sustain 10 MPH and travel 100 miles in a day depending on road conditions, weight of the coach/carriage pulled, weather, etc. The motor carriage (steam, electric, or internal combustion powered) was an improvement but a long way from what we experience today. Visitors often relate what they see and experience at Auburn Heights to modern interpretation. Once reminded of the backstory present a century ago, an Auburn Heights experience often takes on a whole different meaning.
For the next few months, the Friends of Auburn Heights presents Changing Tunes: Evolution of Music at Home. The exhibit explores the evolving technology that brought music into the home and out onto the street from the 1880s through today. Many of the objects on display are still operational, and at select times on Steamin’ Days and museum open afternoons on Thursdays and Fridays, the musical instruments are demonstrated so visitors may hear how times and tunes have changed.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, mechanical music machines were amazing devices and beautiful to listen to, but today the backstory mustn’t be overlooked. These are purely mechanical music-making machines that applied mankind’s most basic understandings of science to produce sound. There are no digital electronics, no batteries, no circuit boards, or similar things we take for granted today. The music is preserved and replayed multiple times through the use of pins on cylinders, holes in paper, or varying width/depth spiral grooves. The “motor” powering the music machine doesn’t require electricity from a wall receptacle or battery.
An 1800s music machine contains but few mechanical parts and needed oiling, or other occasional maintenance. Sound is created and amplified in a purely mechanical way from its creation with the pluck of a metal strip or the vibration caused by moving air across a thin strip of metal that resonates. Amplification of recorded sound is afforded by mechanical diaphragms and resonance chambers. A listener is permitted to hear only ‘a’ selection before a change of cylinder, or disk, or roll must be performed to hear the next selection. A listening experience was but a few minutes duration unlike the “set it and forget it” nature of today’s music devices, which provide an “endless music experience.” Ownership in the 1800s of an automated music machine implied the owner to be successful or be from an “old money” family.
Just as mill ponds were the energy source for water wheels powering the mills along the Red Clay Creek, and boilers pressurized with steam suppled energy to steam engines during the magic age of steam, the astute observer will note the mechanical music machines rely on a miniaturized purely mechanical power storage system. What is this power storage system?
Answer
Many of the mechanical music machines demonstrated as part of the Changing Tunes exhibit rely on a human to provide a temporary “charge” to the music machine in order for it to function while others are more primitive requiring human power continuously applied (hand cranking) for operation. Mechanical music machines that used “stored power” are charged mechanically through a human turning a crank. The kinetic energy of cranking is stored mechanically, at potential energy, in a strip of steel known as a spring the music machine will subsequently use for the playing of a tune. The circular motion with one’s hand on a crank is transformed by gearing into for storage using a long strip of metal called a mainspring.
While Auburn Heights was constructed with “modern direct current electrical lighting,” the mansion’s Regina music box and other music-making antques throughout the house and museum don’t include a power cord or battery to provide power for their operation unlike music devices today. In fact, from 1897 until the start of the 1910s, even plugging in an electrical device was not possible as the modern-day wall receptacle wasn’t invented until 1904! Power for these antique mechanical music machines could only be supplied by a mainspring or continuous cranking by the listener as these were the primary power sources used more than a century ago. The mainspring is part of a the “spring motor” powering the music box or even a clock. Spring motors have been around since the 15th century, if not earlier, powering all sorts of devices.
Power springs and spring motors may be “charged” usually by cranking a crank or twisting a key. When power is needed, the spring’s stored potential energy is released as rotational kinetic energy to drive the music box, a grandfather’s clock, or child’s toy. The compact size and simple design of a mainspring and spring motor make them relatively worry-free in application. Through a train of gears and speed governing devices, all mechanical in nature as well, a very precise delivery of power results. The beauty of the spring motor was it could provide power for longer periods of time, up to 30 days in the case of some mechanical clocks.
OWNED BY A COMPETITOR
Opened in October 1872, the Wilmington & Western Rail Road flourished for several years before falling to receivership and being reorganized as the Delaware Western Railroad. The Delaware Western was purchased by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) in March 1881 as a means to enable additional tracks to be laid in Delaware. Today, what remains of the original 19.7-mile route still connects Marshallton and Hockessin (originally connected Wilmington, DE with Landenberg, PA). In 1888, renamed as the Landenberg Branch of the B&O, the line once displaying Delaware Western on the locomotives, freight and passenger cars, now displayed B&O livery.
By 1890, the B&O was in financial trouble due to the rate structure of freight operations even though the railroad made generous profit on passenger operations. The B&O sold their telegraph service to Western Union, express freight operations to United States Express Company, and their sleeping car equipment and franchises to Pullman Company as a means to show annual profits to the stockholders. By the late 1890s,the financial tricks to keep the railroad solvent were exhausted and reorganization without foreclosure was actively considered. Bankruptcy occurred in 1896. Reorganization allowed the B&O by the early 1900s to appear very successful once again. In the mid-1930s the B&O maintained more than 6,300 miles of track and advertised itself as “Linking 13 Great States with the Nation.”
Another railroad took control of the B&O during the 1896 bankruptcy period just mentioned. Which railroad took a majority stock interest in the B&O during this reorganization?
Answer
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the nation’s first common carrier railroad, and at the time the nation’s oldest railroad, sold more than half the outstanding shares of common and preferred stock to the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), one of the B&O’s strongest competitors, to help finance the reorganization effort. As a result, when the B&O exited reorganization, it could be argued that the PRR effectively ‘owned’ the B&O although the PRR chose not to push the situation because of increasing antitrust investigations underway by the U.S. Government. The PRR chose to seat five individuals on the B&O Board but let the railroad maintain its independence of operations and management as the B&O. Because of government antitrust actions, in 1906 the PRR divested its controlling interest in the B&O by selling shares to Union Pacific and other railroads and investors.
From the 1930s into the 1970s, all of the nation’s railroads experienced a slow decline in passenger ridership and freight tons carried per mile. While the Great Depression saw a heavy decline of railroad traffic in general and a number of bankruptcies, the automobile and trucking industry contributed to the continued degradation of the nation’s passenger and freight railroads. By the early 1960s few railroads in the U.S. remained profitable.
The B&O was typical of nation’s east coast railroads as most were either dealing with red ink in their financial ledgers or they were already in bankruptcy, reorganization, or consolidation. As the Baltimore and Ohio continued to lose money, the directors sought out a financially sound company with deep roots in American railroad history with which to merge. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) formally took control of the B&O in 1963. The combined B&O and C&O purchased Western Maryland Railroad forming Chessie System in 1972.
In similar fashion, the U.S. Government consolidated passenger traffic into Amtrak and formed Conrail in 1976 from several east coast railroads in bankruptcy. In 1980 further railroad consolidations saw Chessie System become part of the newly formed CSX Corporation. CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway, agreed to acquire Conrail in 1998 by splitting it into two roughly-equal parts with both owning some shared assets in New Jersey, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
After a failed abandonment attempt of the Landenberg Branch in 1972 by Chessie System, CSX was granted abandonment of the former B&O Landenberg Branch in 1982. Historic Red Clay Valley, incorporated, the organization founded by Thomas C. Marshall and others in the 1960s to operate steam tourist trains on the Landenberg Branch, raised $90,000 to purchase the 64-acre right-of-way and a diesel locomotive from CSX. HRCV formed Wilmington & Western Railway (WWRY) for track maintenance and to make freight moves that have become increasingly rare occurrences.
THE WHEEL MONKEY
National Train Day (generally celebrated the 1st or 2nd weekend of May, depending on organization) was begun in 2008 by Amtrak to celebrate not only their start of operations in May 1971 but what all railroads have contributed to the growth of the United States. Amtrak ended their official celebration practice eight years later in 2016, although the recognition continues unofficially.
As rail accidents had been on the increase throughout the 1960s, President Nixon signed into law the Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970. This act extended the Department of Transportation’s role in fostering the safe operation of railroads by assigning a defined safety role for the Federal Railroad Administration more comparable to the safety roles performed by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Coast Guard.
As a result, items like those pictured below were defined with the workers using them often called “wheel monkeys.” What are/were the items below used for in the railroad industry?
Answer
Investigations revealed that many railroad incidents and accidents were the result of poorly maintained railroad wheels and track structure. As a result, stricter regulations were put in place in 1970 for all railroads to follow regarding the routine maintenance of railroad wheels and track structures including the contours of rails and wheels. The three gauges pictured above were developed to determine an acceptable vs failing condition for in-service wheel defects routinely observed. The FRA developed a set of minimum requirements any wheel in service had to meet and the gauges above, along with others, allowed quick determination if a wheel complied with minimally acceptable wear and use criteria or had to be removed from service as defective.
As a result of the Act, railroad incidents involving track and car wheels dropped considerably. Today, many of these measurements are done electronically using cameras, ultrasonic, and magnetic resonance testing techniques as cars pass through freight yards. While it may still be possible to hear a railroad car moving past with a wheel thumping like a hammer on a kettle drum (due to having had the wheel slid and a flat spot developing) when one is stopped at a railroad crossing, the car is either being relocated for wheel replacement or about to be flagged as no longer serviceable in need of wheel replacement when it reaches the next interchange yard.
The YouTube video below details how the gauges above are used to make a quick confirmation that a railroad wheel is defective and must be removed for maintenance. A wheel out of compliance may be placed on a wheel lathe at a railroad shop and recontoured to passing status several times before it becomes scrap and must be returned to a foundry for melting back into other steel products.
