The growth of Westinghouse Air Brake in pictures

In September 1869, George Westinghouse, then 23 years old, founded his Air Brake company and built its first plant situated on Liberty Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets. As the following historical photographs chronicle, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company grew dramatically over the next decades.

The building occupying the 2400 block of Liberty Avenue is now home of the Pittsburgh Opera, as seen in the next image.

But Westinghouse Air Brake quickly outgrew that building.

By 1880, the second Westinghouse Air-Brake (sic) Factory opened in Allegheny City, now Pittsburgh’s Northside, on acreage that today includes PNC park.

The 1880 plat map shows that block between General Robinson and Lacock Streets was then occupied by the second Westinghouse Air-Brake works.

1880

By 1893, the Westinghouse Air Brake plant had been totally integrated into the space.

1893

But the Allegheny City plant was also quickly outgrown. By 1888, Westinghouse was already building a new air brake plant 20 miles away.

When the next plat map was produced in 1903, that Allegheny City factory space was now occupied by Westinghouse Electric, which had outgrown its original factory on Garrison Way. Re-purposing existing factories for his new businesses was a regular Westinghouse practise.

1903

George Westinghouse decided to build an entirely new Air Brake plant on acreage he bought in the Turtle Creek valley near where it emptied into the Monongahela River. To house plant workers, he established the borough and town of Wilmerding.

Here’s a photograph of Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Plant in 1890.

Here’s a drawing of the town of Wilmerding in 1897.

And the 1903 plat map of the Boro of Wilmerding.

Both Wilmerding and Westinghouse Air Brake have grown dramatically by the time of this 1905 photograph.

Here’s a postcard view of the Westinghouse Air Brake Wilmerding plant in 1907.

And finally, this postcard from the Library of Congress shows the Westinghouse Air Brake works in Wilmerding, surrounded by six of the company’s other facilities in Hanover, Germany; St. Louis, Missouri; London, England; St. Petersburg, Russia; Canada; and France.