|
In 1870 men said railroad development had reached the end because the iron rails would not stand the increased loads. But Henry Bessemer in England invented a process to produce a cheap steel just a few years before, so the path was again opened. But another handicap existed-railroad tracks were of different gauges which prevented the interchange of freight and passenger equipment. In 1871 the railroads began to standardize on a distance of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches between the rails and by 1887 nearly all the roads were changed over. But rails and locomotives were not the only drawbacks to this new form of transportation. There was the problem of lighting the track. The first American trains could travel only in the daytime. Then a large candle lantern was placed on the locomotive and in 1840 a reflector was added. After the discovery of petroleum, kerosene lamps were used, then gas, and now, electricity. When trains began to travel at night the sleeping problem arose. The early sleeping facilities were crude until 1858 when George Pullman began his experiments and came out in 1864 with the "Pioneer A" - the first Pullman. All the pioneer railroad equipment was crude and accidents were quite frequent. One cause of these accidents were link and pin couplings which had to be guided into place by trainmen standing between the cars. In the 1890's this hazard was eliminated by the invention of the automatic coupler. As the train speeds and weights increased the matter of adequate brakes also arose. Many devices were tried but the hand brake was standard until 1868 when George Westinghouse invented the air brake. |
