George Westinghouse made rail travel safer and helped bring alternating-current electricity into widespread use. The Inter-Works Railway carried his name through the industrial communities he helped build. Richard Shumaker's modern WIWR story carries that history forward.
Meet George WestinghouseMeet WIWR today Explore the WIWR corporation and Lionel collection for saleAn inventor and industrialist whose work reached far beyond one railroad. He changed how trains stopped, backed the technology that let electric power travel long distances, and built companies that turned inventions into everyday infrastructure.
Before it, brakemen applied brakes car by car. Westinghouse's compressed-air system let an engineer brake the train from the locomotive. Later automatic designs made the system safer. Modern rail air brakes grew from that breakthrough.
Westinghouse recognized that AC could be transmitted efficiently over greater distances. He acquired Nikola Tesla's important AC patents, and his engineers helped turn Tesla's motor ideas into working equipment. Tesla's inventions and Westinghouse's industrial drive helped bring AC to the public.
The Westinghouse company supplied the electrical system that illuminated the World's Columbian Exposition. The fair gave visitors a vivid demonstration of what large-scale AC power could do.
Westinghouse equipment and Tesla's AC technology helped turn Niagara Falls into a landmark hydroelectric project. Power reached Buffalo, about 26 miles away—a decisive public demonstration of long-distance electricity transmission.
That is the scale of the history behind the word Westinghouse. The Inter-Works Railway was one part of an industrial network associated with his companies; the modern WIWR corporation honors that history as an independent business.
Read more: Library of Congress biography · Smithsonian on Westinghouse and Tesla · National Park Service on Niagara power.
Chartered in 1902, the historic Westinghouse Interworks Railway served the lower Turtle Creek valley east of Pittsburgh. It carried freight among Westinghouse plants and provided a working line for the testing and demonstration of electric railway equipment.
The railway linked Trafford, Wilmerding, and East Pittsburgh—communities whose identity was shaped by the companies and inventions of George Westinghouse. Its operating story continued until 1962, when flood-control work severed part of the route.
The Inter-Works Railway sat at the intersection of manufacturing, transportation, invention, and the lives of the people who built western Pennsylvania's industrial age.
It moved materials and finished goods among a network of Westinghouse plants.
Its tracks helped demonstrate emerging electric-railway technology in a real industrial setting.
Its story belongs to Trafford, Wilmerding, East Pittsburgh, and the generations shaped by those factories.
Richard Shumaker formed Westinghouse Inter-Works Railway Co., Inc. in Pennsylvania in 2003—bringing a personally meaningful railroad name into a new chapter. This site uses “WIWR, Inc.” as a shorthand for that modern corporation; it is not a separate corporate name.
The modern WIWR story grew from Shumaker's connection to Wilmerding and his interest in George Westinghouse, industrial history, and the original Inter-Works Railway. The name appeared on a limited collection of custom Lionel freight cars and became the center of an archive that now includes corporate records, railway-related material, and a historic stock ledger bearing the railway name.
Shumaker intends to include his separate Pennsylvania fictitious-name filing for “George Westinghouse,” registered in 2000, in a proposed transaction. Its exact treatment would be set out in the transaction documents. The business inquiry page explains the opportunity.
Research the 2004 series: Lionel 6-36518, 6-16479 and 6-36290. The collection guide connects each number to its car type and the contemporary published reference.
Approximately 150 WIWR Lionel freight cars, retained largely in their original boxes.
A stock ledger bearing the Westinghouse Inter-Works Railway name, preserved in Richard Shumaker's collection.
A personal hometown link to the community most closely associated with the Westinghouse Air Brake legacy.
Identify the three Westinghouse Lionel models
Historical overview informed by contemporary records and published histories. Explore the Library of Congress Westinghouse Works collection. Header photograph: “Arrival of the Workmen,” 1904, Library of Congress.
WIWR.net brings together this history, the surviving collection, and Richard Shumaker's account of how the name returned more than forty years after the original railway ceased operation.
About Richard ShumakerInterested in acquiring WIWR, Inc.? View the opportunity.