Janney automatic coupler
Enganche automático Janney
- Date
- 1873 · confidence high
- Place
- Alexandria, Virginia, USA
- Credited to
- Eli H. Janney
- People
- 👤 Eli H. Janney1831–1912
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A knuckle coupler that joins railway cars when they bump together, with no worker having to stand between them. Eli Janney, a former Confederate soldier, patented it in 1873 and it became the North American standard.
Other designs (for example the German Scharfenberg coupler) coexist in Europe; the Janney coupler was standardised in the US in 1887 and 1893.
What it led to
- a drastic reduction in coupler deaths
- longer and heavier freight trains
- a legal requirement in the US under the Safety Appliance Act of 1893