In the following month, official trials of the train were made by the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad near Philadelphia. The train was then taken to Chicago, where numerous tests were made in the presence of leading Western railroad officers. So convincing were these trials of the decided efficiency of the brake, that, immediately afterwards, the Michigan Central Railroad and the Chicago and North-Western Railway each ordered a train to be fitted with the brake.
FIRST ROADS THAT ADOPTED THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKE.
The first five sets of the Westinghouse brake fittings made were got out in the shops belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Altoona, Penn. The first railroads to adopt the brake as a regular part of their equipment, were the Pennsylvania, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the Union Pacific, the Chicago and North-Western, and the Michigan Central Railroads.
Since the Westinghouse atmospheric brake was first tried, many changes in details have been made, and numerous improvements have been effected; but the essential points remain the same. And the best forms of brakes subsequently got out by other inventors are founded on the Westinghouse idea, just as much as the numerous types of locomotives follow the design of Stephenson’s Rocket.
OUTLINES OF THE ATMOSPHERIC BRAKE.
Although the automatic air-brake is now becoming almost universal in American railroad practice, most train men are familiar with the working of the atmospheric brake under the name of “straight air.” When first invented, the Westinghouse brake consisted of an apparatus located on the locomotive for compressing air, which was stored in an iron drum fastened somewhere about the engine. Underneath each car, and connected with the ordinary brake attachments, was a cylinder containing a piston, which operated the brake. The brake-cylinders were kept in communication with the air-drum on the locomotive by iron pipes. Connection between the cars where “stretching” and “compression” made the train vary in length, was made by means of rubber flexible hose. When the engineer wished to apply the brakes, he admitted the compressed air into the supply pipes, through a three-way cock at his hand. This air entered the cylinders under the cars, moving back the pistons which pulled the levers operating the brakes. To release the brakes, the air was permitted to escape out of the pipes into the atmosphere.
Thus, what is really a complicated operation was performed in a simple manner, and by means of machinery not liable to get out of order readily. The instant application of every brake on a long train was put in the hand of the engineer. On the first indication of danger, his hand became powerful beyond the magical forces conceived by the imagination of poets.
HOW EASTERN RAILROADS KEPT ALOOF FROM THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKE.
The growth of the Westinghouse brake into public favor furnishes a curious commentary on the different degrees of enterprise to be found among railroad companies in the various sections of this country. It was natural to suppose that railroads in the thickly settled States, where trains had become too numerous for being safely operated with crude brakes, and no signals, would have been the first to adopt an improved appliance which gave promise of increased safety. Yet the railroads in the Eastern States, with a few creditable exceptions, were among the last to patronize the Westinghouse brake; and they adopted it only when the influence of public opinion could no longer be ignored. Western railroads that ran through sparsely settled prairies, where trains were rare, and stopping room generally ample, were among the first to encourage the inventor of the brake with their support.