Jul 30, 2025 | History, Industrial Revolution, North American Expansion
The Antebellum Era: A Time of Inferior Materials As the American railroad network was first being laid in the first half of the 19th century, it posed safety risks symptomatic of any new technology. U.S. President Franklin Pierce’s personal tragedy on January 6, 1853,...
Jun 12, 2025 | Benefits & Use, History, North American Expansion
A trestle is the simplest type of three-dimensional construction, but build hundreds—or even thousands—of trestles and you have a trestle structure, a series of repeating triangles that can be shaped into most anything. Like a piece in a child’s set of building...
May 1, 2025 | Benefits & Use, History
Preserving wood with coal-tar creosote, an organic bioproduct of coke and steel manufacturing processes, is a sustainable and efficient way to transform wood into high-performing infrastructure. Creosote naturally distills out of coal at high heats and extends the...
Apr 20, 2025 | Benefits & Use
We’ve all heard the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle”: the Three Rs of responsible environmental stewardship. They are listed in this order for a reason: the most efficient way to approach sustainability and limit negative impacts on the environment is—firstly—to reduce...
Jul 18, 2024 | Benefits & Use, History, Industrial Revolution
At the turn of the 20th century, innovations in railroad technology spurred the development of new kinds of railroad networks centered around urban areas. These short-line railroads continued to depend on wooden crossties treated and preserved with creosote. And while...
