Westinghouse's life, times are portrayed
CRANBERRY TWP — George Westinghouse walked into the township municipal center Sunday afternoon with his tailored suit and glass cane to talk about some of his inventions and the history of the company that will call Cranberry home.
No small feat for a man who died in 1914.
Of course the man wasn't really Westinghouse, but former company employee Ed Reis who played Westinghouse in full character to give a living history perspective of the inventor's life.
The event was presented by the Cranberry Township Historical Society. The company is building an 845,000-square-foot headquarters that will house its nuclear division.
Historical society program director Tom Cully said that with the Westinghouse headquarters switching to Cranberry Township, the program was a good way to highlight the company's storied history to a new community.
Reis presented the life of Westinghouse from his early beginnings in upstate New York, to his enlistment in the Union Army during the Civil War, his early successes with the railroad energy engine
and later with the Westinghouse Electric Co. that pitted him against Thomas Edison.Westinghouse was an inventor, American entrepreneur and engineer who had more than 360 patents and founded 60 companies.He was 19 when he created his first invention, a rotary steam engine.Two years later, he invented a car replacer, a track device that guided derailed cars more quickly back onto main rails.He also invented a "reversible frog," which is a switch that guides trains onto one of two tracks.Westinghouse started his business with the air brake, which revolutionized the railroad industry by making it more reliable and safe.The air brake also allowed railroads to run longer trains at higher speeds, thereby increasing revenue and delivery times.In the 19th century, railroads were a major player in the nation's transportation system. Westinghouse came to Pittsburgh to make it his home as the city was the center of industry in the late 1860s.He also got involved with natural gas wells and bought the charter for The Philadelphia Co., which owned the property rights that allowed Westinghouse to lay pipes under private property in Pittsburgh.
In 1951, the federal government broke up the Philadelphia Co., which became the Pittsburgh Railway Co., Equitable Gas and Duquesne Light Co.Westinghouse's greatest work was developing alternating current, which still is in use today.That was the result of a long battle with Edison, who had backed direct current.Westinghouse realized the flaw with direct current is that it could not be sent down lines a long way and that it would be impractical for a company to build power plants every mile to transmit the current.Unlike Edison, Westinghouse didn't seek out the media attention for his inventions. Rather he found satisfaction in making people's lives easier because of his inventions, Reis said.Westinghouse almost lost the company due to bank failures in 1891 and tight capital markets. The company at that time was expanding exponentially and he was found to be short of working capital.The troubled credit markets also doomed a car company that Westinghouse started in France. He made cars there from 1905 to 1906.Westinghouse, who married Marguerite Erskine Walker in 1867 and had one child, George Westinghouse III, died March 12, 1914, at the age of 67 in New York City. He had gone there to seek doctors for treatment.As a Civil War veteran, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, along with his wife, who had survived him by only 90 days.
