Innovation in Railroad Safety: The Westinghouse Air Brake

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In the nineteenth century, the United States began its industrial revolution. American railroads needed to improve their brake systems in trains so they can make it more safe for passengers to ride and quicker for things to be transported. George Westinghouse Jr. created the air brake --- a significant technical innovation in the railroad industry of the late nineteenth century. Air brakes encouraged railroad managers to purchase the product in an instant. While the air brakes were up and running, it took time for most railroad companies to adopt this new technology. Steve Usselman’s “Air Brakes for Freight Trains: Technological Innovation in the American Railroad Industry, 1869-1900”, argued that Westinghouse’s air brakes were integrated that …show more content…

The problem was that railroad companies didn’t know the cost of the air brakes and how much it will cost to put them on the freight trains. Usselman said, “The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, which played a central role in bringing air brakes to freight service, found that the size of this system exacerbated the usual difficulties of estimating the costs and benefits of employing a new device and consequently heightened the uncertainties inherent to innovation” (32). Westinghouse’s company offered western railroad companies a 20 percent discount on air brakes for their freight cars. Usselman made a very good argument about the cost on the air brakes. For example, say if your bathroom toilet is broken, you call a plumber to come fix it, and you don’t fully know the price of the convenience. “The railroads could not calculate fully the cost and benefits of using air brakes until they actually adopted the invention” …show more content…

Usselman’s “Air Brakes for Freight Trains: Technological Innovation in the American Industry: 1865-1900”, argued that freight trains weren’t quick to adapt to new technology as in the air brakes than passenger trains. Influences as in public movement for railroad safety, organization of brakemen, effective regulatory mechanism at the federal level, and technological problems with the devices led to the diffusion of the air brake and differentiated for freight and passenger cases. Usselman reasons on why it took so long for railroad companies to adopt the air brakes because of the unknown cost, lack of cooperation, and having to make changes on freight

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