Eli H. Janney

Eli H. Janney (November 12, 1831 – June 16, 1912), aka Eli Hamilton Janney or simply Eli Janney, was the inventor of the modern knuckle coupler that replaced link and pin couplers on North American railroads.

He was born in 1831 to Daniel Janney and Elizabeth Avis Haines in Loudoun County, Virginia. He married Cornelia Hamilton (1833-1889). He studied briefly at a seminary.

In the American Civil War, Janney achieved the rank of Major for the Confederate States of America.

After the war, he was a dry goods clerk in Alexandria, Virginia; he spent many of his lunches whittling his concept out of a block of wood for a replacement to the railroads' link and pin couplers that were in wide use. On April 1 1873, Janney filed for a patent titled "Improvement in Car-Couplings" describing the knuckle style couplers that are in use on railroads today. He was awarded US patent|138405 on April 29 1873.

He died on June 16, 1912 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Janney's coupler and the Westinghouse air brake are generally regarded as being the two most significant safety inventions in U.S. railroads between the end of the Civil War and 1900.

External links

* [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2006/3/2006_3_51.shtml American Heritage]

References

* CPRR.org (2004), " [http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Link-Pin_Couplers.html Link and Pin Couplers] "; includes a scanned copy of the patent application. Retrieved March 31 2005.
* Union Pacific Railroad, " [http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml UP - Chronological History] ". Retrieved March 30 2005.
*