The Westinghouse Friction Draft Gear

Every railway manager is aware of the difficulty in starting long trains drawn by heavy locomotives without injury to draft gear. With our device no shock is possible, as an important object in the construction of the Westinghouse Draft Gear has been to provide a resistance greater than the tractive effort of two of the heaviest locomotives that may be employed for hauling long trains, and this has been successfully accomplished. Steel Car Train Experiments F I 5HE following record of tests of this apparatus will be more interesting and important to the majority of railway managers;than the full technical descriptionzwhich is also printed herewith : Experiments to test the operation of the Westinghouse Friction Draft Gear were made upon a train of thirty-five steel cars, loaded with fifty tons of ore each, and drawn by a locomotive capable of exerting a draw-bar pull of 40,000 pounds. Two private cars were attached to the rear of the train. First Experiment : The engine and twelve cars were detached from the balance of the train and then returned and coupled at a speed of five miles per hour. The resistance of the draft srear was not exhausted.