George Westinghouse developed railroad braking equipment and built businesses in signaling, natural gas and electric power during the expansion of American industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His career encompassed compressed-air brakes, gas pipelines and alternating-current equipment used in major electrical installations.
His competition with Thomas Edison over electrical distribution was one part of that work. Westinghouse Electric supplied generators for the Niagara Falls hydroelectric development, but also faced financial crises. Its receivership in 1907 and subsequent reorganization left Westinghouse with reduced control of the company.
From a machinery workshop to railroad equipment
George Westinghouse Jr. was born in Central Bridge, New York, on October 6, 1846. His father manufactured agricultural machinery and established a workshop in Schenectady, where the younger Westinghouse gained experience with machines.
He served in the Union army and later as a naval engineering officer during the Civil War. After leaving military service in 1865, he briefly attended Union College before returning to mechanical work. His first patent, issued on October 31 that year, covered a rotary steam engine.
His early railroad inventions included a car replacer for returning derailed vehicles to the track and improvements to railroad frogs, components that allow wheels to cross intersecting rails. In 1867, he married Marguerite Erskine Walker. They had one son, George Westinghouse III.
Railroad braking was then heavily dependent on manual labor. Brakemen turned wheels to apply brakes on individual cars; on freight trains, they moved between cars while the train was running. Westinghouse developed a system that carried compressed air through connected pipes to operate brakes under the locomotive engineer’s control.
His first air-brake patent was issued on April 13, 1869, when he was 22. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was chartered that September. Demonstrations on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1869 included a train taken to Philadelphia to show the equipment to railroad directors.
The original system applied compressed air directly to brake cylinders. Later designs added reservoirs on individual cars and new controls. A patent granted on March 5, 1872, described automatic brake application if the reservoir pipe broke. A break in the separate operating pipe required the engineer to release pressure from the other line to apply the brakes.
Adoption required compatible equipment across cars that could move between different railroads.
Signaling and natural gas
Westinghouse expanded into railroad switching and signaling through Union Switch & Signal, established in 1881. Its work included equipment that combined electrical controls with compressed air to operate switches and signals.
In the 1880s, he also entered the natural gas business in the Pittsburgh area. He organized the Philadelphia Company in 1884 to develop gas supplies and distribution. His engineering work addressed pipeline pressure, leakage and the control of gas delivered to customers.
A patent issued on June 2, 1885, described a system intended to capture gas leaking at pipe joints and direct it into a separate, lower-pressure supply line.
Alternating current and the Edison competition
Westinghouse Electric was founded in 1886. Westinghouse acquired rights to Nikola Tesla’s AC patents in 1888, adding to the technology available to his electrical business.
Transformers allowed AC voltage to be raised for transmission and lowered for use in homes and factories. This reduced transmission losses and offered an advantage over the low-voltage direct-current distribution networks then in use, particularly over longer distances.
Edison favored DC, while Westinghouse backed AC. Their companies competed over equipment sales and patents, and the dispute also involved public arguments about electrical safety. Edison opposed high-voltage distribution through public streets and criticized the dangers of AC systems.
In 1893, Westinghouse Electric supplied an AC lighting system for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The installation provided a large public demonstration of electric lighting and AC equipment.
At Niagara Falls, Westinghouse supplied generators for the hydroelectric development. In its 1897 annual report, Westinghouse Electric said it had installed three generators rated at 5,000 horsepower each about two years earlier and had received an order for five more of the same capacity.
Power reached Buffalo in November 1896 over a transmission line about 26 miles long. Several companies contributed to the development: White-Crosby constructed the line, and General Electric held its electrical-equipment contract. Westinghouse’s generators formed part of the larger generation and transmission project.
Workplace programs and their conditions
Henry G. Prout, an engineer and close associate who later wrote Westinghouse’s biography, dated the introduction of Saturday half-days at the Air Brake Works to June 1, 1881.
A 1913 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey documented safety inspection, education and employee relief programs at the Westinghouse businesses. These included a sanitation and safety inspector at the air-brake company and a company-supported technical night school at Westinghouse Electric.
The survey also described the conditions attached to relief benefits at the electric company. Members contributed from 50 cents to $1.75 a month, depending on wages, and sickness and accident benefits were available for up to 39 weeks. Accepting disability benefits released claims against the company unless the employee notified the superintendent within 10 days of an intention to seek indemnity. The bureau recorded that the company retained the balance of power in the relief organization.
Financing pressures and loss of control
Westinghouse Electric encountered financial strain around 1890 as it sought capital for its expanding operations.
In a 1944 biography, John J. O’Neill recounted Tesla relinquishing royalties to help Westinghouse during the earlier financial crisis. O’Neill also acknowledged that he lacked documentary evidence for the contract and had received conflicting accounts, including one that an earlier payment to Tesla represented advance royalties.
Westinghouse Electric’s 1897 annual report recorded an outright purchase of Tesla’s multiphase-current motor patents for $216,600. The company said the purchase was associated with its patent-license exchange with General Electric and allowed manufacture under those patents without the earlier royalties, apart from payments provided for in the companies’ agreement.
The same report described difficulties selling holdings of lighting-company stocks and bonds during the preceding two years. The company also said it had not yet disposed of its old factories.
During the financial panic of 1907, Westinghouse Electric entered receivership. After its reorganization in 1908, Westinghouse remained president with limited powers under a board dominated by creditor representatives. His official relationship with the company ended in 1911. The air-brake and signaling companies did not enter receivership alongside the electric business.
Later life and corporate changes
Westinghouse died in March 1914 at age 67. Marguerite died that June.
The businesses subsequently followed different corporate paths. Wabtec traces its origins to the air-brake operation founded in 1869. Westinghouse Electric continued in industrial equipment and diversified into businesses including broadcasting and nuclear technology. It acquired CBS in 1995 and changed its name to CBS Corporation in 1997 as it sold industrial operations and shifted toward media. A separate corporation was established in 1998 to manage intellectual property associated with the Westinghouse brand.
