Pennsylvania+Railroad--Innovations

=Pennsylvania Railroad -- Innovations=

The railroad has been essential to the growth to today’s society in all aspects of life. Railroads allow the shipment of huge stocks of food, cattle, dairy, and coal. The [|Pennsylvania Railroad] was founded in 1846 and quickly grew to one of the largest rail companies in the world. Because of it’s leading status in the industry, the [|PRR] was able to develop many innovations that are common place in today’s transportation industry. The [|PRR] took up the practice of standardizing the small parts and overall engine designs throughout the entire company. Along with standardization, the [|PRR] was the first to use steel body cars, air conditioners, airbrakes, and new fuels. These, along with other innovations, helped change the rail industry for the better. This article examines in depth four innovations that took the [|PRR] from a regional company to the “Standard Railroad of the World”

1.1 Original Iron Designs 1.2 A Steel Society 1.3 J Edgar Thomson 1.4 A Slow Switch 1.5 Prospect 2. Air Brakes 2.1 The Westinghouse Design 2.2 First Use By The PRR 3. Signal Designs 3.1 Block Signals 3.2 Semaphore Signals 3.3 Position Light Signals 4. Vestibule Trains 4.1 A Unified Train 4.2 The Pullman Company and the PRR 4.3 Luxury References ||
 * Table of Contents ||
 * 1. Steel Track

__1. Steel Track__ Iron was cheap and quick to make. Iron works could turn out tens of thousands of tons of iron track a year, which drove the price down. This made coming up with a new track design difficult because economically it did not make sense for a company to switch. Iron rails had many problems and, until now, their cost effectiveness allowed them to stay at the forefront of track design. The iron tracks wore out very quickly, in some places of high traffic they would be replaced every six months. This led to cracks and breaks in a rail that obviously was a big safety issue that every company faced. The transition from iron to steel in the 19th century could be seen in all aspect of society. However, the choice between iron and steel in the railroad industry was not a clear answer. Each rail company was able to chose for themselves if they wanted to use iron or steel; which ever was more economical at the time. The switch to steel rails, initially by the PRR, was therefore more an economic decision rather than one of innovation. J. Edgar Thomson said, “it will still be economic to use iron rails…until the cost of producing steel is reduced to its minimum.” J. Edgar Thomson (President, 1852-75) was the chief figure that pushed the company towards a standard of steel tracks. The new Bessemer process allowed the steel to be competitive with the low prices of iron track of the time. The choice was not between one or the other, however. A third innovation was in the mix, iron track with steel wearing surfaces. In 1864 and 1865, Thomson oversaw the laying of 100 tons of crucible steel, 270 tons of Bessemer steel, and a small amount of iron track with steel wearing surfaces. In 1866, Thomson made a speech to the stockholders that the new steel tracks were the best choice. Later in 1866, Thomson laid a plan for converting the existing rails to steel over the next year. The plan was to replace the iron track with steel when each sections annual mattinance came. However, this acute switch did not go as planned. In 1866 the PRR laid 15,830 tons of iron track while only 1,541 tons of new steel track. In 1867 the numbers closed to 13,400 tons of iron track and 3,455 tons of steel track. It is clear that despite the company’s desire to make an immediate switch to steel, the process would become more gradual than anticipated. The eventual completed switch to steel tracks for the entire country was realized by 1910. Historian Albert Fishlow estimated that by 1910 steel tracks were saving the railroad industry $479 million. Pennsylvania Railroad’s initiative to switch to steel tracks opened the doors for more companies to follow without fear of failure. This leadership role that the PRR stepped into would follow it for decades and help keep the company at the cutting edge of technologies.
 * 1.1 Original Iron Designs**
 * 1.2 A Steel Society**
 * 1.3 J Edgar Thomson **
 * 1.4 A Slow Switch**
 * 1.5 Prospect**

__2 Air Brakes__ By the 1870’s safety was a big concern to the public. The [|Westinghouse air brake], which was invented by George Westinghouse, Jr. in 1869, was the the most important rail car advance of the decade. Each car of the train was equipped with the brakes on each set of wheels. These brakes were connected to the engine by pneumatic tubing and controlled by a single lever. This allowed the engineer to engage every brake in the train simultaneously. An added safety element of the system was a fail-safe feature. Westinghouse set up the braking system so that when air was at a high pressure the brake was disengaged, and when the pressure dropped the brakes were engaged. This meant that if for some reason a tube was broken or some other failure occurred, the pressure in the tubing dropped which caused all the brakes on the train to engage and the train came to a stop.
 * 2.1 The Westinghouse Design**
 * [[image:air_brake.jpeg caption="AMSE Magazine October 2008 - A Man For His People"]] ||

**2.2 First Use By The PRR** Westinghouse sold his first set of airbrakes to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1870. Unlike the quest for steel tracks, the PRR did not know that it was on the cutting edge as far as the braking systems are concerned. Westinghouse convinced Thompson that “the Chicago and North Western and Michigan Central Railroad Companies have already adopted it, and other Western Roads will probably do the same, with a view of making its use a feature in their advertising material.” Despite being tricked into the situation, the PRR was actually the first to make the Westinghouse air brake a standard across the company.

__3 Signaling Designs__ The block system was the first use of a standard signal system for trains. After the Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia, the PRR started using the Block System. The main idea was to separate a length of track in sections, called blocks, and only one train was allowed in each block at a time. Blocks were generally 6 to 10 miles long and were separated by block stations. Each station controlled a signal that consisted of an oil lamp inside of a black box. A 22” opening was covered by either a red cloth or a green glass lens. When the red cloth was shown, the train was allowed to proceed. When the green was show the train needs to wait for the preceding train to exit the block. If neither red nor green was shown then there was something wrong with the signal house and the train could either proceed slowly with caution or come to a stop until the problem is solved. The PRR also introduced [|semaphore signals] around the same times as the block system, the 1870’s. This was the first signaling system that did not rely on a worker controlling a manual signal. This had major economic impacts as well because it reduced the need for a person to sit alone in a signal station working 12 hour shifts. The reduced number of workers allowed the railroads to focus their resourced in other directions. A colored light with a large wooden arm was mounted on a pole next to the track. These poles could be from 2 to 20 feet in the air with the arms and lights being typically red or green. The color was not as important as the position and direction of the arm. A simple two state signal was either horizontal or lowered 45 deg. Horizontal meant stop and lowered meant proceed. Later on a 3 state signal was introduced with an even lower 75 deg angle. The lowest position meant the block was clear, the middle meant proceed with caution and horizontal still meant stop. The PRR contributed a great deal to the fine tuning of the semaphore signals. They experimented with different colors and lines, ie adding a white stripe to increase clarity. Eventually a yellow arm with a black stripe was used as the standard. Semaphore signals were also used to provide track routes. The main route at a junction has its semaphore arm on the top of pole while the secondary tracks followed below. This was not always the case, after a number of accidents and confusion regarding which track to take this standardization help keep routes organized. Position-Light signals were truly the innovation of the PRR. The company was able to revolutionize signal technology by taking the mechanical ideas of semaphore signals and produce electrical signals. The basic idea was to take a lamp covered by a lens and create a circular arrangement of 12 lights with 1 in the center for a total of 13 lights. The principals used in semaphore signals was kept, a horizontal pattern of lights meant stop while a vertical pattern mean proceed. Diagonal patterns mean caution. Obviously there could much more information presented than simply stop, go, caution. Different signal can be seen in the corresponding figure. Position Light signals took a long time to catch on. It was not till the 1930’s and 40’s that position light technology took off. Even tough the PRR created a revolutionary new technology it did not replace the old semaphore signals immediately. They waited till the signals needed replacement, which often took many years.
 * 3.1 Block System**
 * 3.2 Semaphore Signals**
 * 3.3 Position Light Signals**

__4 Vestibule Trains__ Before the 1880’s, train travel was a boring, long, and uncomfortable affair. Riders we confined to their own car for the duration of the trip, which left many first time riders unhappy with their experience. There was no sleeping car, dining car, or any other luxuries that we are familiar with today. The main problem was traveling between cars. Before [|vestibule trains], the cars were separated by a large space, vestibule trains, however, closed the gap and allowed passengers to travel from one car to the next without fear of falling, getting blackened by soot, ect. An added benefit of vestibule trains was that it gave the train a solid unified look, instead of a number of cars connected together. The modern view of trains owes its aesthetics’ to the vestibule ideas. In 1877 the [|Pullman Company] was awarded a number of patents for their “Session Vestibule” design. Their ideas covered 5 topics: 1. To resist the injurious effect of a collision by preventing one car from riding up over another and splitting it open; 2. To prevent oscillation between cars; 3. To lessen air resistance; 4. To insure good ventilation; 5. To make a covered passage way that afforded safety to passengers. The Session embodied all of these ideas. The way they accomplished this was by attaching a elastic diaphragm to the end of each car, which were connected when the cars were attached. This provided a short covered walkway between each car and allowed a passenger to walk from the first car to the last without ever being outside. A dining car could therefore be placed in the rear of the train which passengers could visit if they became hungry. In April of 1877 the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced the first Pullman vestibule train. Soon thereafter companies around the country adopted the vestibule designs and luxury travel became the new craze. A new class of travel was now available to those that could afford it,; and be desired by those who could not. Dining cars were only the beginning, vestibule trains opened the doors of creativity for train travel. Soon lounge cars, study cars, business cars, sleeping cars, and anything you could imagine were introduced to the rich. Not all trains had these specialized cars however, most were reserved for special high class trains. Each company had its first class line, the Pennsylvania Railroad had their Pennsylvania Limited line. This was later named the Pennsylvania Special and then the Broadway limited. The Pennsylvania RR opened the doors to luxury travel.
 * 4.1 A Unified Train**
 * 4.2 The Pullman Company and the PRR**
 * 4.3 Luxury**

Primary Sources

The Pennsylvania Railroad Historical and Technical Society Lewistown, PA

Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Route 741 Strasburg, Pennsylvania 17579

Hagley Museum and Library 298 Buck Road East, Greenville, DE 19807

B.B. Adams The Block System (The Railroad Gazette, 1901)

Secondary Sources

Steven W. Usselman __Regulating Railroad Innovation__ (Cambridge University press, 2002)

Timothy Jacobs __The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad__ (Smithmark Publishers Inc., 1995)

Mie Schafer __Pennsylvania Railroad__ (Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing Co, 1997)

Brain Soloman __Railroad Signaling__ (MBI Publishing Co, 2003)

ASME Magazine __A Man For His People__, October 2008 Issue