A Life of George Westinghouse |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
air-brake alternating current alternating-current system amongst applied automatic brake auxiliary reservoir became brake cylinder brake pipe British Westinghouse built circuit commercial compressed air coupling designed devices direct current direct-current distribution draft gear elec electric art Electric Company electropneumatic energy enterprise equipment experience field Fluid-Pressure freight friction Gaulard and Gibbs George Westinghouse horsepower hydraulic important improvement induction motor inghouse installed interest interlocking invention inventor later lighting locomotive Lord Kelvin machine means mechanical ment miles Nernst lamp Niagara Falls operation pany patent piston Pittsburgh plant polyphase power braking practical pressure produced propeller quick-action rail railroad railway result rotary converter Shallenberger single-phase speed spring steam engine steam turbine stop straight-air brake Switch and Signal Tesla motor things tion took traction train transformer transmission trials triple valve turbo-generator United vacuum brake voltage volts Westing Westinghouse Company Westinghouse Electric Westinghouse Electric Company wheels World's Fair
Popular passages
Page 319 - The Bessemer invention takes its rank with the great events which have changed the face of society since the Middle Ages. The invention of printing, the construction of the magnetic compass, the discovery of America and the introduction of the steam engine are the only capital events in modern history which belong to the same category as the Bessemer process.
Page 26 - ... that their devices preceded his or that theirs were more comprehensive or effective. Various litigants filed thousands of papers to prove their points. Several of those suits were combined in 1875 and threatened the very foundation of Westinghouse's efforts and business. A Cleveland-based judge agreed that "Westinghouse was not the first to conceive the idea of operating railway brakes by air pressure" and that he "was not the inventor of the larger part of the devices employed for such purposes.
Page 319 - Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually as well as materially, and not only facilitates the interchange of the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove national and provincial antipathies...
Page 11 - Be paid. as the second: for there is a. youth in thoughts, as well as in ages; and yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.
Page 307 - Exposition was not Darwin's forte and his English is sometimes wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb sagacity about him — like that of a sort of miraculous dog — and he gets to the truth by ways as dark as those of the Heathen Chinee.
Page 160 - ... to costs which at first were not considered with sufficient care. 4. Believing unreservedly that the increased capacity of a railway and its stations, the economies of operation, and other advantages will bring about gradually the systematic electrification of steam railways, the wish of the author is that the progress of the art may not be hampered and such electrification of main lines delayed or rendered unprofitable by mistakes which, with experience, judgment and foresight, might be avoided....
Page 266 - Mr. Westinghouse's conception of what should have been done was faultless. It was his misfortune that he was a quarter of a century ahead of the times. If Great Britain had accepted his advice countless millions of waste would have been saved. It will now be necessary to scrap enormous investments in un-economical plants to make way for the carrying out of Mr. Westinghouse's plan.
Page 69 - The rotation of the wheel is arrested as soon as the friction between the brake-block and the wheel exceeds the adhesion between the wheel and the rail ; and therefore the amount of pressure which should be applied to the wheel is a function of the weight which the wheel brings upon the rail. The value of this function varies with the adhesion ; hence, with a high adhesion...