Westinghouse Air-Brake Co. v. New York Air-Brake Co.

96 F. 991, 37 C.C.A. 649, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2558
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 1899
DocketNo. 660
StatusPublished

This text of 96 F. 991 (Westinghouse Air-Brake Co. v. New York Air-Brake Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Westinghouse Air-Brake Co. v. New York Air-Brake Co., 96 F. 991, 37 C.C.A. 649, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2558 (2d Cir. 1899).

Opinions

SHIPMAN, Circuit Judge.

The Westinghouse patent, No. 538,-001, hereinafter called the “pa tent of 1895,” was an improvement upon the quiclc-action air brakes, described in letters patent 360,070 and 370,837, which were issued to Mr. Wesiinghouse, and which have frequently been the subject of litigation in the federal courts. It is well known that the device of No. 376,837 has gone into universal use, and has been the standard quick-action air brake upon long freight trains in this country. The history of air-brake invention is given in Westinghouse v. Brake Co., 170 U. S. 537, 18 Sup. Ct. 707; but, in order to understand the relation of the invention described in the patent of 1895 to the preceding art, it is not necessary to go beyond the years 1886 and 1887. That history was given [992]*992in Westinghouse Air-Brake Co. v. New York Air-Brake Co., 11 C. C. A. 528, 63 Fed. 962, and is as follows:

“Tlie promptness witli which an automatic air-brake system could be made effectual depended upon the promptness with which air pressure in the train pipe could be reduced, and the equalization of pressure could be changed. Before the series of inventions originated by the Burlington trials, this reduction had been effected in passenger trains of ordinary length by ‘venting’ the train pipe, or opening a port from the train pipe to the open air, which was initiated by a turn of the engineer’s valve on the locomotive. Westinghouse, in his attempt to create efficient and immediate service upon each car of a long train, enlarged the venting system, so that, when the reduction of train-pipe pressure had commenced by the turn of the engineer’s valve, the triple valve under each car should also vent the train pipe of- that car. Each car, therefore, contained its own venting mechanism, and, as the mechanism did its work upon its own car, it hastened the work upon the car next in the rear. Westinghouse also sought to save, and did save, power by compelling the compressed air thus vented to pass into the brake cylinder, instead of into the open air. But sudden and large reduction of pressure is only to he used in a case of emergency, and therefore means for such reduction must he made supplementary to the means for the ordinary service of the brakes, so that ordinary and extraordinary use of the brakes can each he made available, as necessity arises. The method in ISTo. 380,070 was to make the ordinary range of motion of the triple-valve piston, which was produced by a reduction of train-pipe pressure of a few pounds, do the ordinary work of ‘braking’ a train, and to malte an extraordinary range of motion throughout the entire length of its capacity for travel, which was produced by a reduction of 15 to 20 pounds, do the extraordinary work which gave to the brake the name of ‘quick-action.’ When the piston of the triple valve moved through the entire length which it could travel, the stem of the piston came in. contact with the stem of the emergency valve, opened it, which uncovered a port, and thereby the train-pipe pressure was vented into the brake cylinder. The claims of the patent call the first or ordinary range of motion of the piston ‘a preliminary traverse,’ which admits air from the auxiliary reservoir to the brake cylinder, and the second range of motion ‘a further traverse,’ which enables the piston to admit air directly from the main pipe to the brake cylinder.”

■The defect in this invention, which was that the port which was opened by the emergency valve was necessarily restricted in size, was remedied in No. 376,837, which abandoned reliance upon the piston of the triple valve as the means of opening the emergency valve, and used a supplementary piston, contained in a supplementary chamber, and actuated by pressure from the auxiliary reservoir. The port through which, when uncovered, this pressure passes, is, in the mechanism shown in the specification, uncovered by the excess stroke of the triple-valve piston. The mode of operation is described as follows:

“When an emergency stop is to. he made, the engineer throws his engineer’s valve wide open, thereby causing a sudden and material reduction of pressure. The excess of the auxiliary reservoir pressure then forces the main piston stem against said other stem, overcoming the tension of its spring, drives the main piston to the extreme limit of its stroke, and thereby uncovers the ports leading from the auxiliary reservoir to the supplemental valve chamber. This pressure drives the supplemental piston outwardly, or downwards, against the stem of the supplemental valve, and forces it from its seat. Thereupon, the preponderance of train-pipe pressure in the brake pipe opens the check valve, and the air from the train pipe rushes directly from the brake pipe to the brake cylinder.”

A quick, and, so far as possible, a simultaneous, action of the brakes on each car depends upon quick and simultaneous action in [993]*993the reduction of train-pipe pressure. This was partially accomplished in No. 300,070 by the port from train pipe to brake cylinder, the novel feature of the invention of that patent, and was much, more fully accomplished in the invention of No. 370,837 by means of the new piston, actuated by auxiliary reservoir pressure. In each device, the emergency port was from train pipe to brake cylinder, and the particular means by which it was uncovered in each device was the excess stroke of the triple-valve piston. The reason for venting into the brake cylinder will be adverted to hereafter.

In 1892, Mr. Westinghouse made a new invention, which modified or changed the means by which he had uncovered the opening into the brake cylinder. Instead of using a “further traverse” of the triple-valve piston to uncover the emergency valve of No. 300,-070, and the excess stroke of that piston, which uncovered the port through which auxiliary reservoir pressure passed, in No. 370,837, he vented the train-pipe air into the brake cylinder by the use of a compound piston connected to the brake-cylinder piston. A valve in a passageway leading directly from the train pipe to the brake cylinder controlled the discharge of air from the train pipe. Prof. Parke, one of the complainant’s experts, says:

“This valve is immediately operated by a piston under the influence of a motive power produced by the movement of another piston. In other words, the train-pipe vent valve of the device of patent No. 588,001 is operated by a compound piston, the movement of one part of which may be made to produce a motive power which will cause the other part to open the vent valve.”

The piston which operates the vent valve “is subjected only to such an operative pressure as can be created hv the rapid movement of another piston.” The speed of the operative piston, rather than its length of movement, is the means by which the vent valve is opened, and train-pipe air is promptly vented. The best description of the method of operation of the compound piston is contained in the brief of the counsel for the complainant, and is as follbws:

“In case it is desired to apply the brakes slowly or partially, for a ‘service application/ the traimpipe pressure is gradually lowered by the engineer, which causes the triple valve to slowly vent auxiliary reservoir air to tile brake cylinder through the graduating valve, resulting in a corresponding slow movement of the varying speed piston.

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96 F. 991, 37 C.C.A. 649, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2558, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/westinghouse-air-brake-co-v-new-york-air-brake-co-ca2-1899.