A YOUNG INVENTORY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 16, 18 April 1907, Page 37

A YOUNG INVENTORY

The majority of our readers have at one time or another noticed with what ease and absence of jars an express train pulls up at, say, -the Dunedin railway station. Tfiis facility for stopping a train so readily is due to the us« of the Westinghouse brake, which has come into alm<ost general^ use on trains within recent years. This brake was the invention of quite a young man, , anti many persons before it was put to a practical test thought tdie inventor was, a visionary when he claimed to be able to stop a train by air. Nobody seemed inclined to let Westinghouse try his plan on a real train, but they did not object to iis working model of it in a shop where he ctnfid do £o harm or involve anybody else in expense. He knew his scheme would work, but he could not make any one else believe it. ,So he continued to sell 'his invention for "replacing derailed cars on the tracks and to talk" about his brake to any railroad man who was willing to listen. 1 Well have you ever stopped a train with this' air thing of^yours ? ' they would ask. No, he couldn't say T that he had done so. No-body would let •him try it, even on a goods train. . One €ay he arrived in Pittsburgh selling his other invention and talking abput his brake notion to a man connected, with a railroad out there. * That's a great idea of yours,' said the man ; 'we will try it on our line.' So the officials of this railroad permitted Westinghouse to put his new brake on one of their trains. He had to agree to indemnify bhe road for any dam>age that might be caused to the train as the result of his trials. The train was equipped. On the designated day the confident inventor and a group of sceptical railroad meni boarded the train oh which the first air brakes were fixed. Off went the train on its initial trip. The engineer put on full speed, and just as he had rounded a curve he saw ahead, at a grade crossing, and in the middle of the track, a loaded wagon, a man and a boy and a balky horse. The engineer moved his little lever, ami the first train that was ever ' stopped by . air pulled up at a standstill' several feet short of the obstruction. , . Thus on its first trial, the Westinghouse, air brake .saved life and prevented' damage tci property. Thenceforward talking, was unnecessary ; all that had "to be done was to i make brakes. The inventor thought of that cla-use securing compensation to the railrtoad for any -damage he might do to the train, and he laughed. His fortune dated, from that day. He was then " pnly twenty-two.. v