Full title: 'A Hundred Years of Speed with Safety - The Inception and Progress of the Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company 1881-1981, by O.S. Nock'
Published by Polunnio, 228 pages. Large A4 size softback (N5363).
From the rear side cover: The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co Ltd can trace its roots in Chippenham, Worcester and London back to the 1850s. For over a century the company was a true railway pioneer using innovative signalling and braking systems to allow the safe and efficient operation of railways both in the UK and overseas.
OS Nock was an outstanding and prolific railway author, but he was also a senior executive at Westinghouse, commissioned to write this centenary history in 1981. The book was not published until 2006 when it was revised and augmented by a comprehensive selection of images and explanatory panels, complementing this important and authoritative text.
This second edition adopts a larger format than the original release of 'A Hundred Years of Speed with Safety'. It contains more than 70 new photographs and new information that has become available since the original publication including, for the first time, an account of the early railway history of Chippenham. Chapters include:
- The Prelude to Automatic Continuous Brakes
- Interlocking Diversity - The Signalling Constituents
- The Dawn of Power Signalling
- The First Alliance of Brakes with Signals
- World War I and Just After - The Great Amalgamation
- A Time of Many Developments
- 1924-30 - Seven Years of Signalling Progress
- The Great Slump, Rectifiers to the Rescue, Notable Brake Development
- Evolution Despite the Slump, Notable Advances in Signalling
- The Air Brake in Europe and Asia, The Great Polish Contract, China
- Exciting Years Before World War II
- World War II - A Time of Epochal Changes
- Post-War - The First Eventful Years
- Subsidiary Companies - Overseas and Home
- Company Reorganisation, The British Railways Modernisation Plan and its Repercussions
- The Semiconductor Story - Some Notable Applications of Rectifier Equipment
- Signalling: An Era of Major Development
- Automation and Controls
- Rapid Transit, Latest Development in Brakes
- Momentous Evolution - Into the Hawker Siddeley Group
- Into the New Era, Mass Transit, 200km/h
- From Brotherhood to Westinghouse in Chippenham
- Chronology, Facts and Figures
- Epilogue - What happened next?
- Appendix 1 Power Frames
- Appendix 2 Excerpt from Blackwoods Magazine, February 1940
- Index of People
The condition of the book is excellent. The covers are clean and bright, the spine is tight and intact, and all pages are clean, intact, unblemished and tightly bound. There is a small price sticker on the rear side cover
| Condition | New |