 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1890 |
| Headquarters | Watertown, New York United States |
| Products | Control Valves, Control Modules, Data Management Systems, Hose Assemblies, and various freight car components |
| Revenue | $165 million USD (2005) |
| Parent | Knorr-Bremse |
| Website | www.nyab.com |
The New York Air Brake Corporation, located in Watertown, New York, is a manufacturer of air brake and train control systems for the railroad industry worldwide.
New York Air Brake was established on July 1, 1890 acquiring all of the property and business of Eames Vacuum Brake Company. Eames Vacuum Brake Company had previously been in existence since 1876 manufacturing vacuum brakes. The new company erected ten new buildings on Beebee Island and nearby shores just in time for a booming brake market driven by an 1893 law mandating standardized brakes for all railroad cars.
In 1902, NYAB bought the 268-acre (1.08 km2) Poole Farm in Watertown, NY, and began its move to its present location. The new Works were planned as a model industrial enterprise, providing housing, work, and recreation for 1,000 employees on the grounds. The workers, however, decided that they did not want to live next door to their workplace and the plan was scrapped. In 1903, the new foundry became the first part of the new plant to begin operations.
During this period NYAB's main competition was Westinghouse Air Brake Company, which lead the market in locomotive braking sales. Despite Westinghouse's lead, American railroads preferred to have two brake suppliers. James Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railway, and the New York Central Railroad were especially supportive of New York Air Brake's technology. In 1912, NYAB and Westinghouse agreed to share the market, along with research and development. NYAB's 25 percent share of the brake market soared to $3 million per year by 1914.
In 1915, NYAB shifted focus of their current manufacturing of vacuum brakes to efforts toward the First World War. Sales grew from $4.7 million in 1915 to $24 million in 1916. By 1918, the company employed 7,000 who were involved in defense manufacturing, including the production of horse-drawn cannons.
After World War I, it was decided that a new braking system needed to be developed to provide braking power for the ever growing freight train industry. Engineers at New York Air Brake contributed to the development of what came to be known as the "AB" brake. During the mid-1930s, at the same time the "AB" brake was being widely implemented, the pneumatic and electro-pneumatic braking equipment for modern, high-speed locomotives and passenger trains were engineered and produced at the Watertown facilities.
A dramatic drop in sales following the end of World War I led New York Air Brake to seek new markets. In 1919, the company built and marketed a "Three-Point Truck;" an "enormous affair, the four wheels alone weighing nearly one ton. The machine had a 15-foot (4.6 m) wheelbase, and an overall length of 19 feet (5.8 m). It weighed about 8,100 pounds and had a carrying capacity of from three to six tons..." It was not a success.
In 1925, new management announced another try at the auto industry with the introduction of the Gerlinger hydraulic lumber carrier; an engine, and a cab set high atop a lumber rack. The project faded quickly.
Westinghouse and New York Air Brake began development of a replacement for the venerable "K Brake" in 1929. The Great Depression slowed, but did not stop, development of the new brake and, in April 1932, New York Air Brake began construction of a 200-car test track, the largest in the world. In 1934, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) voted to adopt the new composite AB brake. Despite the Depression, the company maintained employment for 300 workers, many on a part-time basis.
In 1945, New York Air Brake again returned to aiding the United States' war effort in World War II. Up until the end of the war, NYAB became a producer of tank hulls for the Sherman tank, anti-aircraft shells, automatic pilots for aircraft, breech mechanisms for guns, hydraulic pumps for fighter aircraft, and other military hardware and had over 5,000 employees contributing to the war effort in the war-torn Europe by the end of 1944.
By the end of the Second World War, New York Air Brake had expanded its product line to include hydraulic aircraft pumps. In 1949, the company furthered its market reach with the purchase of the Hydraulic Equipment Company Dudco Products Company. As a result, sales leapt from $18 million in 1950 to more than $45 million in 1957.[ citation needed ]
On June 15, 1967, NYAB merged with General Signal Corporation. In 1980, Congress passed the Staggers Act, which deregulated the railroad industry. As a result of the ending of tax breaks for railroad car ownership, new car and brake orders plummeted from 96,000 in 1979 to 5,800 in 1983. In November 1982, the company put into effect a series of workforce cutbacks that enabled NYAB to survive this difficult time.
Meantime, in 1972 New York Air Brake's lobbying in Albany, NY landed a trial run with the New York City transit system. The company was allowed to equip one eight car R44 train numbers 368-379, with one spare four car set of brakes each, making it a total of 12 cars equipped with same.. One trouble-free year later, New York Air Brake signed a $25 million contract to provide brake systems and controls for New York transit's entire fleet of 754 R46 subway cars, the beginning of over a decade of providing brakes to commuter lines. By 1990, New York Air Brake had furnished $100 million worth of equipment for more than half of New York City's R62A's, R68's and R110A/R110B subway cars before NYAB's Transit Division was established as the Knorr Brake Company and moved to Westminster, Maryland.
On January 2, 1991, Knorr-Bremse acquired New York Air Brake's rail braking business from General Signal, however, they did not purchase Stratopower, or Dynapower. [2]
By the end of 1993, NYAB stopped manufacturing the Westinghouse brake in favor of Knorr-Bremse's improved DB-60 air brake featuring poppet valve technology. Consolidation of operations into one building, tax abatements and state funding kept the company in Watertown.
Since its acquisition, NYAB has modernized under Knorr-Bremse creating the most technologically advanced rail brake manufacturing facility in North America.[ citation needed ]
At the end of 2009, NYAB operations included Train Dynamic Systems (TDS) in Irving, Texas, Knorr Brake Limited in Kingston, Ontario, a brake shoe manufacturer, a brake hose manufacturer, and two Service Centers in Little Rock, Arkansas and Riverside (Kansas City) Missouri.
George Westinghouse Jr. was a prolific American inventor, engineer, and entrepreneurial industrialist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and for being a pioneer in the development and use of alternating current (AC) electrical power distribution. During his lifetime, he received 362 patents for his inventions and established 61 companies, many still in existence today.
A railway air brake is a railway brake power braking system with compressed air as the operating medium. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on April 13, 1869. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell Westinghouse's invention. In various forms, it has been nearly universally adopted.
Westinghouse may refer to:
In rail transport, distributed power (DP) is a generic term referring to the physical distribution—at intermediate points throughout the length of a train—of separate motive power groups. Such "groups" may be single units or multiple consists, and are remotely controlled from the leading locomotive. The practice allows locomotives to be placed anywhere within the length of a train when standard multiple-unit (MU) operation is impossible or impractical. DP can be achieved by wireless or wired (trainlined) means. Wired systems now provided by various suppliers use the cabling already extant throughout a train equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes (ECP).
The vacuum brake is a braking system employed on trains and introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum brake system, became almost universal in British train equipment and in countries influenced by British practice. Vacuum brakes also enjoyed a brief period of adoption in the United States, primarily on narrow-gauge railroads. Their limitations caused them to be progressively superseded by compressed air systems starting in the United Kingdom from the 1970s onward. The vacuum brake system is now obsolete; it is not in large-scale usage anywhere in the world, other than in South Africa, largely supplanted by air brakes.
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels. The most common are diesel-electric locomotives and diesel-hydraulic.
Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
A railway brake is a type of brake used on the cars of railway trains to enable deceleration, control acceleration (downhill) or to keep them immobile when parked. While the basic principle is similar to that on road vehicle usage, operational features are more complex because of the need to control multiple linked carriages and to be effective on vehicles left without a prime mover. Clasp brakes are one type of brakes historically used on trains.
Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers.
The Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (WABCO) was an American company founded on September 28, 1869 by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Earlier in the year he had invented the railway air brake in New York state.
Westinghouse Rail Systems Ltd was a British supplier of railway signalling and control equipment to the rail industry worldwide. Its head office was in Chippenham, Wiltshire, where it manufactured a variety of mechanical and electrical/electronic railway signalling equipment. It had six other UK offices in Croydon, York, Birmingham, Crawley, Swanley and Glasgow. It also had a number of overseas offices, particularly in the Far East, including Melbourne.
A magnetic track brake is a brake for rail vehicles. It consists of brake magnets, pole shoes, a suspension, a power transmission and, in the case of mainline railroads, a track rod. When current flows through the magnet coil, the magnet is attracted to the rail, which presses the pole shoes against the rail, thereby decelerating the vehicle.
The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ltd was a British manufacturer of railroad signs. Founded by George Westinghouse, it was registered as "Westinghouse Brake Company" in 1881. The company reorganised in 1920, associating with Evans O'Donnell, and Saxby and Farmer which merged to form the "Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company". The 'Saxby' would be dropped from their title in 1935.
Knorr-Bremse AG is a German manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles that has operated since 1905. Other products in Group's portfolio include intelligent door systems, control components, air conditioning systems for rail vehicles, torsional vibration dampers, and transmission control systems for commercial vehicles.
Electronically controlled pneumatic brakes are a type of railway braking systems.
Theodor Georg Knorr was an engineer and entrepreneur on the field of railroad technology and founder of the company Knorr-Bremse. He is particularly remembered for his role in the development of the compressed air brake.
Haldex AB, also known as Haldex Group, is a Swedish company operating in the commercial vehicle industry. Haldex focuses on brake products, air suspension systems and products to enhance safety for heavy vehicles. The Foundation Brake product line includes brake products for wheel ends such as disc brakes, brake adjusters for drum brakes and actuators. Air Controls comprises products that improve the safety and driving dynamics of the brake system, such as compressed air dryers, valves, ABS and EBS.
The Kunze-Knorr brake is an automatic compressed-air brake for goods, passenger and express trains. It was the first graduated brake for goods trains in Europe. When it was introduced after the First World War, goods train brakes switched from hand operation to compressed-air in various European countries. The Deutsche Reichsbahn alone put the cost of equipping German goods wagons with Kunze-Knorr brakes between 1918 and 1927 at 478.4 million Reichsmarks. The operating cost savings from faster goods services and having fewer brakemen was assessed by the Reichsbahn at almost 96.3 million Reichsmark annually.
Upstate New York has been the setting for inventions and businesses of international significance. The abundance of water power and the advent of canal and rail transportation provided nineteenth century upstate New York entrepreneurs with the means to power factories and send their products to market. In the twentieth century, hydroelectric power and the New York State Thruway served the same roles. In April 2021, GlobalFoundries, a company specializing in the semiconductor industry, moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley, California to its most advanced semiconductor-chip manufacturing facility in Saratoga County, New York near a section of the Adirondack Northway, in Malta, New York.
Decelostat is a wheel slide protection system developed by Westinghouse Air Brake Company that is used in railroad cars to prevent over-braking that causes wheel-slide, a condition of reduction in friction between train wheels and rails. This low wheel/rail adhesion condition reduces braking performance and causes damage to wheels and the rails.