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George Westinghouse
Also Known As Father of the Air Brake
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American engineer and industrialist who publicly demonstrated a compressed-air railway braking system in Pittsburgh in 1869, at age 23, and patented it the same year. Within a few years he redesigned it so that any loss of air pressure in the brake line, whether from a deliberate application or an accidental break between cars, automatically applied the brakes rather than releasing them, a fail-safe principle that became the standard for railway braking worldwide and remains in use today.
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Pioneered
Rail Transport, Modes Westinghouse pioneered the fail-safe air brake, one safety-critical element of rail transport, rather than the mode as a whole; recorded associated rather than holds for that reason.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: George Westinghouse
WikipediaRailroad air brakes and signaling/switching systemsQuote, Railroad air brakes and signaling/switching systems
In 1869, at age 23, Westinghouse first publicly demonstrated his revolutionary new railroad braking system in Pittsburgh.
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