George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was a prolific American inventor, engineer, and entrepreneurial industrialist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and for being a pioneer in the development and use of alternating current (AC) electrical power distribution. During his career, he received 360 patents for his inventions and established 61 companies, many of which still exist today.
His invention of a train braking system using compressed air revolutionized the railroad industry around the world. He founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company in 1869. He and his engineers also developed track-switching and signaling systems, which led to the founding of the company Union Switch & Signal in 1881.
In the early 1880s, he developed inventions for the safe production, transmission, and use of natural gas. This sparked the creation of a whole new energy industry.
During this same period, Westinghouse recognized the potential of using alternating current (AC) for electric power distribution. In 1886, he founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Westinghouse's electric business directly competed with Thomas Edison's, who was promoting direct current (DC) electricity. Westinghouse Electric won the contract to showcase its AC system to illuminate the "White City" at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The company went on to install the world's first large-scale, AC power generation plant at Niagara Falls, New York, which opened in August 1895.
Ironically, among many other honors, Westinghouse received the 1911 Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers "for meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system".
George Westinghouse was born in 1846 in the village of Central Bridge, New York (see George Westinghouse Jr. Birthplace and Boyhood Home), the son of Emeline (Vedder) and George Westinghouse Sr., a farmer and machine shop owner. The Westinghouse ancestors came from Westphalia in Germany, moving first to England and eventually emigrating to the US. The family name had been anglicized from Wistinghausen.
From his youth, Westinghouse displayed a talent for machinery and business. He was encouraged by his father and was assigned tasks in the Westinghouse Company workshop. The company produced farm equipment such as the Westinghouse Farm Engine.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, the then 14-year-old attempted to run away from home to enlist, but was stopped by his father. In June 1863 his parents allowed him to enlist, first in the 12th Regiment of the New York National Guard and then in the 16th Regiment of the New York Cavalry. He earned a promotion to the rank of corporal before being honorably discharged in November 1863. A month later he joined the Union Navy. He served as an Acting Third Assistant Engineer on the gunboat USS Muscoota and then on the ship USS Stars and Stripes through the end of the war. These ships were used to blockade Southern port cities. After his discharge in August 1865, Westinghouse returned to his family and enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, but he quickly lost interest and dropped out during his first term.
He further developed his skills in his father's company shop. Westinghouse was just 19 when he received his first patent for a rotary steam engine. At age 21, he invented a car replacer, a device used to guide derailed railroad cars back onto the tracks, and a reversible "frog", a rail junction piece used to switch trains between different tracks. In 1868, Westinghouse moved with his wife to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to access better and less expensive steel for the manufacture of his railroad frogs, and there he began to develop his recently invented railroad air brake concept.
Railroad air brakes and signaling/switching systems
During his travels, Westinghouse had witnessed the aftermath of a collision where engineers on two trains, approaching each other on the same track, had seen each other but were unable to stop their trains in time due to the existing brake systems. At that time, brakemen had to run along catwalks on the top of the cars, manually applying the brakes. Coordinating that process was tricky and dangerous. It also meant trains could not exceed ten cars in length, and thousands of brakemen died or were maimed each year.
In 1869, at age 23, Westinghouse first publicly demonstrated his revolutionary new railroad braking system in Pittsburgh. It stopped trains using a compressed air system. His first braking system used an air compressor and an air reservoir in the locomotive, with a single compressed air pipe running the length of the train and with flexible connections between cars. That line controlled the brakes, allowing the engineer to apply and release the brakes simultaneously on all cars. A charter for what would eventually become the Westinghouse Air Brake Company was filed in July of that year.
Although the system was successful, as demonstrated when it prevented a serious mishap in front of assembled witnesses, it was hardly fail-safe. Any rupture or disconnection in the air line left the train without brakes. Over the next two years, Westinghouse and his engineers addressed the problem by inverting the process, designing valves so that constant pressure in the lines kept the brakes disengaged. An air reservoir was also placed on each car. With the improved design, any interruption or break in the line automatically caused the train to stop.
During the next decade, building on his earliest inventions, Westinghouse expanded his interest to railway signaling and track-switching systems. Previously, signaling relied on oil lamps and track switching was performed manually. Westinghouse's designs changed all that. In May 1881, Westinghouse founded the Union Switch and Signal Company to manufacture, market, install, and maintain these innovative control systems, which were eventually adopted by railroads around the world.
By 1883, Westinghouse had become interested in natural gas. Gas had recently been discovered in nearby Murrysville, Pennsylvania, and it attracted a lot of attention, in part because of a spectacular flaming blowout of the Haymaker Well in 1878. After visiting the well and recognizing its commercial potential, he undertook drilling for gas on his estate Solitude (today's Westinghouse Park) in Pittsburgh.
Early in the morning of May 21, 1884, the drilling crew struck a pocket of gas at a depth of 1500 feet, and the resulting blast of dirt and water blew the top off the derrick. It took Westinghouse a week to devise a method to cap the flow of gas. He was encouraged to develop a system to deliver gas to heat and light area homes and businesses. Eventually, several natural gas derricks towered above his estate's Victorian-era gardens. In modern times there is no above-ground trace left of these derricks.
That year, Westinghouse acquired a dormant utility charter for "The Philadelphia Company", and over the next three years, he developed devices and secured more than 30 patents for this technology. He used the Philadelphia Company to develop gas wells and to promote gas usage both for commercial and residential purposes. By 1886, the Philadelphia Company owned 58 wells and 184 miles of distribution piping in the Pittsburgh area, and by 1887, it served over 12,000 private homes and 582 industrial customers throughout the state.
In 1889, as his involvement with the generation and distribution of electricity was surging, Westinghouse resigned as president of the Philadelphia Company, but he remained on its board. Growth in the natural gas business slowed in the 1890s, hindered by supply problems and ongoing safety concerns related to gas distribution in homes and businesses. However, the Philadelphia Company continued to grow, spawning enterprises such as Equitable Gas and Duquesne Light.