Men of Initiative - George Westinghouse

Modern Americans Who Have Led The March of Progress.

(Copyright, 1912, The Press Publishing Co.)

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, Wizard of Steam, Air and Electricity.

WHEN GEORGE STEPHENSON started the first locomotive at Darlington the problem of stopping it and its imaginary train did not appear important. But as the railway developed into a grand, masterful utility, daily transporting hundreds of thousands of passengers and traveling at higher speed than originally deemed possible, necessity for placing control of the train entirely in the hands of its engineer became imperative.

The British method, maintained un til recently, was to attach a "brake van" to the rear of each train, in which a porter, seated upon a perch that gave to him overlook of the cars and track, applied a windlass on signal by whistle or at sign of danger. In America a brakeman stood upon the platform between two cars and, when the locomotive whistle signalled to him, cranked a chain to stop the train. It was a slow process and his post was one of danger.

The locomotive driver of to-day sits in his cab, absolute master of the life-laden train behind him. A hand rests upon the lever that shuts off the steam, but within closer reach is a small knob, one stroke upon which will apply the Westinghouse automatic air brake — stopping a train, running at average speed, in its own length!

Such is the miracle wrought by George Westinghouse!

He has been "inventing" since boy hood. Like Edison, Westinghouse has invaded many branches of mechanics and science; the triad forces with which he conjures are steam, electricity and air. But his supreme claim as an originator must rest upon the automatic-air brake.

Like most great inventions, its simplicity is amazing. An air-compresser, operated by steam from the loco motive's boiler, is connected by pipes with a steel cylinder and piston under each car. A pipe, reaching to the end of the train, is constantly filled with air under high pressure, which can be instantly and locally applied.

The air brake was first tried in 1869, but the rear cars of long trains were not checked as promptly as the for ward ones. And several accidents, de scribed as "buckling," occurred. The rear cars climbed upon the front ones. Twenty-one years of tireless experimentation, and an expenditure of many thousand dollars successfully remedied this serious defect. Since 1887 every car on a train of fifty cars becomes a separate unit the instant brakes are applied by the locomotive driver. Recent tests on a fifty-car train showed an "interference" of less than two seconds between the first and the last car — an interval of time too brief to cause disaster.

When the automatic brake was adopted brakemen opposed it. "Braking" was believed by them to be a fine art. Mechanism, responding instantly, did their work more effectively. In 1895 Congress passed a law requiring all freight and passenger cars in the United States to be equipped with air brakes before January 1st, 1898. That law was enforced. The great works at Wilmerding, fourteen miles east of Pittsburg, and many other shops in Europe and Canada are the outgrowth of Westinghouse success.

Many thousand words would be required to deal with this American, who first saw the light amid the hills of Schoharie county, New York, in 1846. Very memorable was his contract for lighting the Columbian World's Fair at Chicago, 1893, when Westinghouse underbid all competitors by $1,000,000 for the largest electric lighting contract ever signed up to that time. It included twelve 1,000 horse-power generators, then a stupendous proposition. But at Niagara to-day are giant turbines directly connected with eight generators, each of 5,000 horse-power and weighing 170,000 pounds. All are the output of the Westinghouse works.

Under the patronage and encourage ment of this man, Nikola Tesla's poly phase system of electrical transmission of power has been worked out together with the Tesla principle of the rotary magnetic field.

The Westinghouse shops are sprouting-beds of genius!

At this hour there are 50,000 railway motors in operation; utilities for which the Westinghouse name is responsible are countless. The works at Wilmerding, previously mentioned, contain the finest collection of tools of any shops in the world.

The latest Westinghouse thought is an air spring for automobiles, doing away with springs. It consists of four brass cylinders, two in front and two behind. These are said to remove all shock, and to admit the use of solid rubber instead of pneumatic tires! The brass tubes are filled with oil and air, and an automatic pump maintains the air pressure within them. It is the original air brake idea!

Therefore, we end where we begin, with the one supremely original spark of initiative.