Westinghouse Air Brakes

I know that it took a long time for the air brake to be accepted. There was a general understanding among the railroad executives and workers that the air brake was far superior to a system that had brakemen climing on top of railroad cars any time of day or night and in any sort of weather to turn the wheels that applied each brake. When a brakeman was finished with one car he would have to scramble across the little walkway on top of the car to get to the next one. This hardly allowed them to "slam on the brakes". Wrecks resulted. The problem was, not surprisingly, that it was expensive to change over and there was a reluctance to spend the money. Usually, with the diffusion of a new and expensive safety technology, it takes a well-known disaster to have it implemented. It would be interesting to know whether the wreck of 97 was that incident.

George Westinghouse made a lot of money from his brake eventually, setting up an industrial dynasty. One of the corporate descendents was the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company but I think there were some other very big ones, too.

Sourdough