The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ltd was created in 1935 when the Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company Ltd, dropped the 'Saxby' from their title. For most of the 20th century, it manufactured railway air braking, signalling,mining & colliery equipment,industrial automation and power rectifier equipment in the engineering works in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England and Melbourne, Australia. There were associate companies in South Africa (Saxby & Farmer Private) and India. The company's main factory of around 35 acres was located immediately north of Chippenham railway station.[1]
There were also factories in Kingswood, Bristol (Douglas Ltd - formerly Douglas Motorcycles then Douglas Vespa and vehicle air brake equipment), Hobbs Automatic Transmissions(epicyclic gearbox), Westcode Semiconductors (now IXSYS) The main factory was east of Foundry Lane, Signal & Automation design offices as well as Brake Engineering, drawing offices and design/test laboratories on island site shared with Hugh Baird & Sons, Maltsters and the Wiltshire Bacon Company. The Rectifier Design Department was at Derriads House, some design offices opposite the main factory site, other test & development laboratories beyond the semiconductor site at Avon House.
On-site manufacturing capability covered every part of the engineering spectrum other than electron beam welding.There were acres of machine shops containing almost every variety of machine tool, extensive press shops, iron and non-ferrous foundries together with pattern shop and core shop, , extensive drop-stamp forge, die-casting shops and tool room, tin-smiths' shop, copper oxide and selenium rectifier shops, electro-plating shop. The assembly and erection shops included wiring shops for signalling equipment, rectifier equipments, colliery equipment, railway signaling relays. The list is almost endless. Support activities included a well-equipped and staffed medical centre and apprentice training school and hostel. Apprentices fell into Trade, Craft, Student and Graduate categories.
The Company had a Works restaurant (overalls allowed), Staff restaurant (smartish dress)and a Directors' Restaurant all of which were supplied from the Company allotments outside the North Gate (now a housing estate).
There was an immense amount of innovative work done. To name a few things, railway vacuum brakes, numerous mechanical , electrical and electronic signalling innovations. The company pioneered the use of S.G. Iron (spheroidal graphite) for crank shafts and other items (followed in this by Ford U.K.) and was the first to produce an all-electronic control & monitoring system (Westronic, in various "styles") initially for the railway market but then extending into oil, water, gas, electricity and sewage.
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Predecessors included Evans O'Donnell Limited and Saxby and Farmer.[1] Saxby and Farmer was started by John Saxby and John Stinson Farmer in the mid-19th century to manufacture railway signalling equipment.[1] The railway air brake was patented in the United States of America by George Westinghouse in 1869 and introduced in 1872. In 1920, Saxby and Farmer and Evans O'Donnell formed Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company Ltd.[1]
Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company Ltd formed part of BTR plc who acquired it from the Hawker Siddeley group in 1982. In 1999, BTR merged with Siebe to form Invensys.
Invensys quickly split the company into Westinghouse Signals Ltd and Westinghouse Brakes Ltd, selling Westinghouse Brakes to Munich-based competitor Knorr-Bremse.[2]
Also formerly a part of The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company is Westcode, a high-power semiconductor manufacturer, now part of IXYS group.
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