In a message dated 6/11/2007 7:14:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
I have recently been looking at the Butterley Co. foundry books for the
first decades of the 19th century. They produced large numbers of gang rails for
mines and quarries ie for plateways/tramways. But I have found no definition
of gang rail in OED or Google.
Can anyone offer an explanation as to the derivation of the term.
I can confirm that gang rails are otherwise known as plate rails, of the
Outram style. Butterley Co. produced the rails for the Croydon Merstham and
Godstone Iron Railway, completed in 1805, and the Butterley Co. records have
references to sale of gang rails to that railway.
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