Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 

Changes in operating practices of railroads

1. Hand brakes to air brakes

Have you ever considered what would be invovled in braking a train. If you have seen kids learning to bike newly, when they brake, how they haul. According to Brake performance on modern steam railroad passenger trains, a train moving at 60 mph has a kinetic energy of 224 million ft-lb. This equals one-fifth weight of the Times square ball dropping from a height of 21 miles or a blast that could raise the train 120 ft into the air. 

Author Samuel William Dudley in 1914 writes that the brake problem has to do with "convenient, economical and harmless dissipation" of the kinetic energy of a moving train.

It started as a triple valve but with increase in the length and weight of the train, the design is being pushed beyond its margin of safety.

Westinghouse air brake Co. George Westinghouse's legacy makes you understand the importance of the ability of not just getting the train to run but how to stop it. He is also credited to have found the railway traffic as well as a pioneer in steam turbine development.

2. Coupling hook to automatic couplers

3. Iron to steel rails

4. Eight wheel locomotives to ten-wheelers

5. Ten-ton capacity to 40 or 67 capacity freight cars

6. Snowplows of wedge type to rotary plow