William Robinson (inventor)
William Robinson (November 22, 1840 – January 2, 1921) was an American inventor and engineer who created the first track circuit for railway signaling, a system that greatly improved railroad safety and efficiency. Born in Ireland, he moved to the United States as a boy and lived much of his life in Brooklyn, New York.
He studied at Wesleyan University, earning a BA in 1865 and an MA in 1868, and later received a PhD in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from Boston University in 1907. Beginning in 1867, he developed automatic block signaling for railroads, with his first system going into service on the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad in 1870. He patented many railway signaling ideas and invented the closed track circuit, a “failsafe” device that could detect problems like a broken wire or rail. This technology became standard in rail signaling.
Robinson founded the Robinson Electric Railway Signal Company in 1873, and his systems were installed on railroads across the United States during the 1870s. He lived in Boston in the mid-1870s and helped install signaling on lines such as the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Boston and Providence Railroad. In 1878 he organized the Union Electric Signal Company, which was bought by Union Switch and Signal in 1881. Afterward, he pursued other mechanical inventions. He wrote History of Automatic Electric and Electrically Controlled Fluid Pressure Signal Systems for Railroads (1906) and was a Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
William Robinson died in Brooklyn on January 2, 1921, at the age of 80.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:41 (CET).