1868 | Transportation
Transportation
English shipbuilder's son Thomas Henry Ismay, 31, acquires the name White Star Line for £1,000 January 18, salvaging a 23-year-old sailing and steam-packet line that began with the clipper ships Red Jacket, Ellen, and Blue Jacket in 1845, launched its first steamship (the 2,000-ton Royal Standard) in 1863 for the Liverpool-to-Melbourne run, but has gone bankrupt. Ismay and a partner promptly contract with the Belfast shipbuilding firm Harland and Wolff to construct four new ships for the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (White Star's official name) (see R.M.S. Oceanic, 1871).
Jay Gould wrests control of the Erie Railroad from Cornelius Vanderbilt (see 1864). Gould has conspired with his Vermont-born fellow Erie director James Fisk, now 34, and former Erie president Daniel Drew, now 71, to sell off watered stock, bringing New York's Tammany boss William Tweed into their plot and bribing state legislators to block Vanderbilt. The legislature at Albany votes April 20 to give Gould and Fisk full control of the Erie (see commerce, 1869).
The Westinghouse air brake patented in April by upstate New York inventor George Westinghouse, 22, will permit development of modern rail travel, although Cornelius Vanderbilt dismisses it as a "fool idea" and other railroad barons will resist adopting it until Congress passes legislation in 1893 requiring its use. Brakemen continue to jump from car to car and set brakes manually in all kinds of weather, their job requires daredevil agility, and few brakemen live long. They are easily replaced if killed or injured, and it is much cheaper to pay men $1.50 per day than to invest millions of dollars in equipment, but Americans have been horrified at the deaths and injuries caused by train accidents, and wrecks of wooden passenger cars will continue to make rail travel hazardous. Westinghouse invented a device for rerailing derailed cars 3 years ago, has seen compressed air used in European mining operations, and has devised a system that employs a hose running the full length of a train, with each car having its own tank of compressed air. He will make his air brake automatic in 1872, and it will permit an engineer to set the brakes simultaneously throughout a whole train by means of a steam-driven air pump (see Union Switch and Signal, 1882).
An automatic railway "knuckle" coupler patented April 21 by Virginia-born former Confederate Army major Eli H. (Hamilton) Janney, 36, hooks upon impact and is far safer than the link-and-pin coupler that endangers not only the fingers but also the lives of brakemen, who are all too often crushed between cars when trying to connect cars manually. Janney's coupler prevents excess sway of railcars, he will obtain a second patent in April 1873 after making improvements, organize the Janney Car Coupling Company to enforce his patent rights and collect royalties, and obtain additional patents in 1874, 1879, and 1882. His coupler will become standard railway equipment in 1888, although some railroads will resist adopting it until forced to do so by congressional legislation in 1893.
Coil and elliptic railroad car springs invented by U.S. engineer Aaron French, 41, make rail travel more comfortable, but travel by rail remains hazardous.
New York's West Side Elevated Railway opens July 1 between Cortlandt Street and Battery Place.
A bridge spans the Mississippi River at Quincy, Illinois, through the efforts of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy boss James Frederick Joy (see 1854). He has spent $1.5 million on the project in defiance of his critics, and his judgment will be confirmed when the Burlington's business in the Quincy area doubles next year (see Hannibal Bridge, 1869; Eads, 1874).
Atchison Associates is formed in September to build the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (see 1864). The new group will soon run out of money and control will pass to Boston financier Thomas Nickerson. He will be president of the Santa Fe from 1874 to 1880 and will obtain backing from Boston's Kidder, Peabody and from London's Baring Brothers (see pooling agreement, 1880).
London's St. Pancras station opens October 1 as a Midland Railway train pulls in with passengers who find a clock from the 1851 Great Exhibition. Architect William Henry Bralow, now 56, helped Joseph Paxton design the exhibition's Crystal Palace.