1872: George Westinghouse Jr. receives patent No. 124,405 for the automatic railroad air brake.
Before the air brake, railroad engineers would stop trains by cutting power, braking their locomotives and using the whistle to signal their brakemen. The brakemen would turn the brakes in one car and jump to the next to set the brakes there, and then to the next, etc. The system was dangerous (brakemen died or were maimed), imprecise (the train might stop too soon or too late for the station) and unreliable (the train sometimes didn’t stop before running into another train or anything else on the tracks). Railroad accidents were frequent and deadly.
Westinghouse’s 1869 version, the straight or direct air brake, used air hoses to connect the cars. When the engineer turned on the brakes, air pressure turned the brakes on in each car of the train. Of course, if the hoses leaked or disconnected, the train lost braking power.
With air brake 2.0, Westinghouse turned things around. Air pressure kept the brakes off. The engineer reduced pressure to put the brakes on. This built-in safeguard meant a loss of pressure would stop the train automatically. That applied to leakage and to the situation where cars came unhitched: Loose cars would brake to a stop. The system went into use in 1872 on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Automatic air brakes soon gained widespread adoption around the world. They made braking safer and more precise and allowed railroads to operate at higher speeds, now that trains could be reliably stopped. The brakes are used today not only on railroads, but for large trucks, buses and even amusement-park rides.
Westinghouse (1846-1914) was one of the great inventors of the 19th century. He also created life-saving electrical signals for railroads that kept two trains from occupying the same &
The current corporate iteration, Westinghouse Electric Company, is owned by Toshiba and “provides fuel, services, technology, plant design, and equipment for the commercial nuclear electric power industry.”
I used to work for the Westinghouse Broadcasting division (the “Group W”) of Westinghouse Electric. It bought out and became today’s CBS. Once a great company, Westinghouse pioneered TV and radio stations including the first commercial radio station in the U.S. – KDKA in Pittsburgh.
George Westinghouse should be remembered as a genius in many arenas. He’d be equally famous as Thomas Edison if he’d self-promoted the way Edison did.
kudos to you for reminding us all of this great man of Railroading…coupla notes…the series of test…there was 3…took place in 1886/7 on the Burlington…American RR’s were in no hurry to adopt the automatic airbrake any more then they were willing to adopt Major Janney’s automatic coupler…there was 1 man named Lorenzo Coffin who spent his lifes savings and over 15 years fighting the railroads to adopt the coupler and brake…after the first unsuccessfull test Coffin convinced Westinghouse to attend the 2nd. …this test too was unsastisfactory…but Mr. Westinghouse being on hand worked to make improvements to his invention…the Burlington agreed to another test and Coffin prevailed upon the Master Car-Builders Association to oversee the test this test was successfull…according to news reports in the Burlington IA paper…“an immense train was hurled down the steep grade into Burlington at 40 miles per hour…and the train came to a standstill within 500 feet with nary a jar”…it was also reported that Coffin had tears in his eyes and said " I am the happiest man in all of Creation"…the Railroads were beat into submission by the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893…President Harrison after signing the bill into law gave the pen he signed it with to Mr Coffin…Coffin alone badgered harassed and generaly lobbied for this act for the 6 years after the tests and for about 10 before the tests…IMHO he deserves as much credit for the safety of todays RR’s as do Westinghouse and Janney
the air brakes on trucks and buses are simular to railroad air brakes only in that they use air…air systems on trucks and buses are direct air…air pressure from the resevors is regulated by pressure on the brake pedal which forces diaphrams to move levers applying the brakes
i stand humbly corrected…the Pennsy did indeed apply Westinghouse’s brakes on certain passenger trains as early as 1870…other railroads slowly followed…the Master Car-Builder test in 1886\7 were with freight trains as it was widely believed that the newfangled brakes wouldnt stop a heavy freight train
I used to work for the Westinghouse Broadcasting division (the “Group W”) of Westinghouse Electric. It bought out and became today’s CBS. Once a great company, Westinghouse pioneered TV and radio stations including the first commercial radio station in the U.S. – KDKA in Pittsburgh.
George Westinghouse should be remembered as a genius in many arenas. He’d be equally famous as Thomas Edison if he’d self-promoted the way Edison did.
Nikola Tesla in my opinion was by far the greatest contributor to modern (and post modern) science. The full depth of his contributions to technology are still not fully understood today… 100 years later. It can be said that he invented so many things, but unfortuneaty got credit for virtualy none (although he iventually did get credit as the father of radio in the 30’s). His contributions applied to sciences that were not even remotely concieved of at the time, includeing the kinnescope you are looking at right now and the logic concepts behind the screen. There could be (and are) books written about his relationships with Edison and Westinghouse. Not to get off topic but I highly recomend the book “Man Out of Time” to anyone interested in the history of Westinghouse, Edison or Tesla himself. His contributions are far beyond the relatively simple polyphase electrical generation/distribution systems we take for granted today.
