Union Switch and Signal
Company | Defunct
1881 CE to 2009 CE
Union Switch and Signal (US&S) is a supplier of railway signaling equipment, systems and services in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
As of January 1, 2009, US&S is known as Ansaldo STS USA.
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George Westinghouse founds the Union Switch and Signal Company in 1881 to manufacture his signaling and switching inventions, he having since pursued many improvements in railway signals (at this time using oil lamps).
George Westinghouse imports a number of Gaulard-Gibbs transformers and a Siemens AC generator to begin experimenting with AC networks in Pittsburgh in 1885.
Westinghouse's interests in gas distribution and telephone switching have logically led him to become interested in electrical power distribution.
He had investigated Edison's scheme, but had decided that it is too inefficient to be scaled up to a large size.
Edison's power network is based on low-voltage DC, which means large currents and serious power losses.
Nikola Tesla is working on "alternating current (AC)" power distribution.
An AC power system allows voltages to be "stepped up" by a transformer for distribution, reducing power losses, and then "stepped down" by a transformer for consumer use.
A power transformer developed by Lucien Gaulard of France and John Dixon Gibbs of England had been demonstrated in London in 1881, and had attracted the interest of Westinghouse.
Transformers are not new, but the Gaulard-Gibbs design is one of the first that can handle large amounts of power and is easily manufactured.
William Stanley, Jr., demonstrates the first complete system of high voltage Alternating Current transmission, consisting of generators, transformers and high-voltage transmission lines, on March 20, 1886.
His system allows the distribution of electrical power over wide areas.
Stanley and George Westinghouse install the first multiple-voltage AC power system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
The network is driven by a hydropower generator that produces five hundred volts AC.
The voltage is stepped up to three thousand volts for transmission, and then stepped back down to one hundred volts volts to power electric lights.
Stanley, as an electrician working with tele keys and fire alarms of an early manufacturer in Philadelphia, had designed one of the first electrical installations (at a Fifth Avenue store in ).
In 1885, Stanley had built and on September 21 1886 patents the first practical alternating current device, based on Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs' idea.
This device is the precursor to the modern transformer.
Stanley's work led him to be hired by Westinghouse as his chief engineer in Pittsburgh.
Westinghouse, assisted by Stanley, and Franklin Leonard Pope, has worked to refine the transformer design and build a practical AC power network.
In 1886 also, Westinghouse forms the "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" (which will be renamed the "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in 1889).