They were placed back down across the bed pieces and
spiked fast to them. They were laid about three feet apart the length of
the road. Over those sills, in the upper edge of the ties, they cut out
two gains. In those gains they laid two stringers running directly over
the sleepers. These stringers were sawed out about four by six inches
square. They were laid in the gains of the ties, spiked fast and wedged
with wooden wedges. Then the woodwork was finished and everything ready
for pulling on the iron. They used the strap rail iron. The bars were two
inches and a quarter wide and half an inch thick. These bars were laid
flat on top, and next to the in-edge, of the stringers and were spiked
fast to them. In this way our railroad was built. The cars running away
west on it, penetrating Michigan as the harbinger of civilization, opened
up a way for the resources of the country.
The strap iron which they used first proved to be very poor iron. In
after years, if a spike came out or the bar cracked off at the spike
hole, the bar would turn up like a serpent's head and if not seen in time
it was liable to throw the train off the track and do damage.
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