Westinghouse Air Brake Company
Former American manufacturing company / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (sometimes nicknamed or abbreviated WABCO although this was also confusingly used for spinoffs) was founded on September 28, 1869 by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2] Earlier in the year he had invented the railway air brake in New York state.
Company type | Public |
---|---|
NYSE: WAB | |
Industry | Transport |
Founded | September 1869; 154 years ago (1869-09) |
Founder | George Westinghouse |
Headquarters | Westinghouse Building, , U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Number of employees | 18,000 (2017) |
Footnotes / references [1] |
After having manufactured equipment in Pittsburgh for a number of years, he began to construct facilities and plants east of the city where homes for his employees were built. In 1889, the air brake manufacturing facility was moved to Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, and the company's general office building was built there in 1890.
In 1921 the company began manufacturing a modified air brake system for installation in trucks and heavy vehicles.[3]
In 1953 WABCO entered the heavy equipment marketplace, buying the assets of leading equipment designer R.G LeTourneau.[4] An entity known as LeTourneau-Westinghouse sold a range of innovative products, including scrapers, cranes and bulldozers until 1967, when it shortened its name to Wabco. In 1968 American Standard purchased Wabco.
WABCO's direct successor companies include WABCO Vehicle Control Systems, a commercial vehicle air brake manufacturer now owned by ZF Friedrichshafen; and Wabtec, a railway equipment manufacturer, which have been owned and operated independently of each other since the mid-twentieth century.