For mobile users: Richard Reynolds, who managed the Darbys’ Ketley ironworks, near Coalbrookdale, in the 1760s, introduced cast-iron plates and then cast-iron

For mobile users: Richard Reynolds, who managed the Darbys’ Ketley ironworks, near Coalbrookdale, in the 1760s, introduced cast-iron plates and then cast-iron rails to protect the wooden rails from wear and tear or to replace them. He had another reason as well for using iron: as an ingenious storage system. A depression following the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1764 reduced demand for iron products. Prices fell. Reynolds wanted to keep his furnaces going and his employees at work. Rather than warehouse the excess production, Reynolds used it for rails. Then, if iron prices went back up, he could have the rails removed and sold. Reynolds “tried it at first with great caution,” his granddaughter recalled, “but found it to answer so well, that very soon all their railways were made with iron.”