Foster founded the company to fulfill a transportation need he first observed while growing up around his father’s oil business in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Many inquiries came to his father’s company from mines, logging camps, and quarries regarding the availability of relay (used) rail. Because no truck transportation existed at that time, rail spurs, both permanent and temporary, represented the only means for transporting heavy materials to and from the jobsit e. New rail was cost prohibitive, so Foster initiated the practice of selling relay rail- taken from abandoned and replaced railroads and urban transportation systems – to meet this need.