indignantly replied that it was,--that it was equipped with the good, old-fashioned hand-brake;--and he then proceeded to vehemently stake his professional reputation on the absolute superiority of that ancient but somewhat crude appliance over anything else of the sort in existence. Nevertheless, on this occasion also, the great dynamic force which is ever latent in first-class railroad accidents again asserted itself. Even the most opinionated of professional railroad men, emphatically as he might in public deny it, quietly yielded as soon as might be. In a surprisingly short time after the exhibition of ignorance which has been referred to, the railroads in Massachusetts, as it has already been shown, were all equipped with train-brakes.[23] [23] Page 157. In its present improved shape it is safe to say that in all those requisites which the highest authorities known on the subject have laid down as essential to a model train brake, the Westinghouse stands easily first among the many inventions of the kind. It is now a much more perfect appliance than it was in 1871, for it was then simply atmospheric and continuous in its action, whereas it has since been made automatic and self-regulating. So far as its fundamental principle is concerned, that is too generally understood to call for explanation. By means of an air-pump, attached to the boiler of the locomotive and controlled by the engine-driver, an atmospheric force is brought to bear, through tubes running under the cars, upon the break blocks, pressing them against the wheels. The hand of the engine-driver is in fact on every wheel in the train. This application of power, though unquestionably ingenious and, like all good things, most simple and obvious when once pointed out, was originally open to one great objection, which was persistently and with great force urged against it. The parts of the apparatus were all delicate, and some injury or derangement of them was always possible, and sometimes inevitable. The chief advantage claimed for the brake was, however, that complete dependence could be placed upon it in the regular movement of trains. It was obvious, therefore, that if such dependence was placed upon it and any derangement did occur, the first intimation those in charge of the train would have that something was wrong might well come in the shape of a failure of the brake to act, and a subsequent disaster. Both in Massachusetts and in Connecticut, at the crossing of one railroad by another at the same level in the former state and in the approach to draws in bridges in the latter, a number of cases of this failure of the original Westinghouse non-automatic brake to act did in point of fact occur. Fortunately they, none of them, resulted in disaster. This, however, was mere good luck, as was illustrated in the case of the accident of November 11, 1876, at the Communipaw Ferry on the New Jersey Central. The train was there equipped with the ordinary train brake.