George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse Jr., born October 6, 1846, and passing on March 12, 1914, was a Pittsburgh-based American inventor, engineer, and industrialist who founded 61 companies and held 360 patents. His most famous achievements are the railway air brake and pioneering work in alternating current (AC) electrical power. Many of his companies still operate today.

His compressed-air train braking system transformed railroads worldwide. In 1869, he established the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Later, his work on track-switching and signaling systems led to the 1881 founding of Union Switch & Signal.

During the early 1880s, Westinghouse created inventions for safely producing, transmitting, and using natural gas, launching an entirely new energy industry.

Around the same time, he saw the promise of AC for electric power. In 1886, he founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which competed directly with Thomas Edison’s direct current (DC) system. Westinghouse’s AC system lit the “White City” at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, and his company built the world’s first large-scale AC power plant at Niagara Falls, which opened in August 1895. In a twist, he received the 1911 Edison Medal for his work on AC.

**Early years**

Westinghouse was born in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York, to Emeline (Vedder) and George Westinghouse Sr., a farmer and machine shop owner. His ancestors came from Westphalia, Germany, moved to England, then to the US, with the family name anglicized from Wistinghausen.

As a youth, he showed talent for machinery and business, encouraged by his father, who gave him tasks in the Westinghouse Company workshop, which made farm equipment like the Westinghouse Farm Engine.

When the Civil War began in April 1861, the 14-year-old tried to run away to enlist but was stopped by his father. In June 1863, his parents allowed him to join the 12th Regiment of the New York National Guard and later the 16th Regiment of the New York Cavalry. He became a corporal and was honorably discharged in November 1863. A month later, he joined the Union Navy as an Acting Third Assistant Engineer on the gunboat USS Muscoota and then the USS Stars and Stripes, blockading Southern ports, until the war ended. After his discharge in August 1865, he returned home and enrolled at Union College in Schenectady but dropped out during his first term.

He honed his skills in his father’s shop. At 19, he received his first patent, for a rotary steam engine. At 21, he invented a car replacer (to guide derailed cars back onto tracks) and a reversible “frog” (a rail junction piece for switching trains). In 1868, he moved with his wife to Pittsburgh to access cheaper steel for his railroad frogs, and there he began developing his air brake concept.

**Railroad air brakes and signaling/switching systems**

Traveling, Westinghouse saw the aftermath of a collision where engineers on two trains heading toward each other could not stop in time because existing brakes required brakemen to run along catwalks and manually apply brakes. This process was dangerous and limited trains to ten cars; thousands of brakemen died or were maimed yearly.

In 1869, at age 23, Westinghouse publicly demonstrated his compressed-air braking system in Pittsburgh. It used an air compressor and reservoir in the locomotive, with a single compressed air pipe running the train’s length and flexible connections between cars. The engineer could apply and release brakes on all cars simultaneously. A charter for the Westinghouse Air Brake Company was filed that July.

Though successful—it prevented a serious mishap during a demonstration—the system wasn’t fail-safe. A rupture or disconnection in the air line left the train brakeless. Over the next two years, Westinghouse and his engineers inverted the process: they designed valves so constant pressure kept brakes disengaged, with an air reservoir on each car. Any break in the line now automatically stopped the train.

Over the next decade, building on his early inventions, Westinghouse expanded into railway signaling and track-switching. Previously, signaling used oil lamps and switching was manual. His designs changed that. In May 1881, he founded the Union Switch and Signal Company to manufacture, market, install, and maintain these systems.