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George Westinghouse card art from Lost Chapters (Gold, Character)
Card art: George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse: Gold Character

George Westinghouse (1846 to 1914) was an American inventor and manufacturer who patented the railway air brake in 1869 and built a major electrical company. He backed alternating current, bought rights to Nikola Tesla's patents in 1888 and lit the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Cost
5 crystals
Type
Character · Inventor
Power / Health
3 / 5
Color
Gold (Inventors & Industry)
Rarity
Uncommon
Set
Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)

Lightning 1 (when played, deal 1 damage to an enemy character).

Characters your opponent plays enter rested.

Railway innovator and electrical pioneer who bet on alternating current and won enlightenment.

Real history

The real history

George Westinghouse was born in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York. By age 13 he was working in his father's shop, and as a teenager he served on the Union side in the Civil War and then attended Union College.

In 1869, at age 22, he patented the air brake. Until then, brakemen had to stop trains by hand on each car, and the job was deadly. The Westinghouse system let the engineer brake every car at once, using compressed air. He formed the Westinghouse Air Brake Company that same year, and the brake eventually became standard on most of the world's railroads.

Later he turned to electricity and built the Westinghouse Electric Company. He bet on alternating current, or AC, which can travel over long distances. In 1888 he obtained exclusive rights to Nikola Tesla's polyphase AC patents. His company then won the contract to light the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which showed the public that AC power could be safe and practical. It also won a contract in 1893 to build three huge generators at Niagara Falls, which were finished in 1895.

Westinghouse held 361 patents and by 1900 had around 60 companies to his name. He served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1910 and died on March 12, 1914.

Sources

  1. About George Westinghouse, Library of Congress, Films of Westinghouse Works
  2. George Westinghouse, American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.

Game lore (invented)

In the game's story

In the game's invented story, Westinghouse arrives in Marginalia in the middle of a loud argument between Tesla and Edison in the market square of Dogear Crossing, and he calms them by pointing out that they have an audience. He stays on as the peacemaker, friendly with Tesla and still working on things with Edison, and he takes charge of the realm's first proper power line, running from the Little Tower on the Folded Corner's roof to the Archive.

In Lost Chapters' frame story, history's heroes fall into an invented world called Marginalia. That story is fiction; the history on this page is real.

How the card plays

George Westinghouse costs 5 crystals and is a 3/5 Gold Inventor. He has Lightning 1: when played, he deals 1 damage to an enemy character. Characters your opponent plays enter rested.

The damage is small, but it adds up with other damage in the same turn, since it wears off only at the end of the turn. Zap, Zap, deals 2 more, so the two together finish off any enemy with 3 health. His second ability slows your opponent: rested characters can't block, so each new enemy arrives unable to defend right away. That is strongest when you are the aggressor. Nikola Tesla, Father of Electricity, Nikola Tesla, cuts his cost to 4 because he is an Inventor, and Genius Convention, Genius Convention, gives your Inventors +1/+1. Play him before you attack to clear a weak blocker.

  • Playable in decks led by Nikola Tesla, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Gold.
  • In the Tesla starter deck (1 copy). Deck code: LC2-BV8BYAFhAWICYwFkAWUCZgFnAWgBaQFqAWsCbAFtAm4BbwFwAXEBcgFzAnQBdQF2AXcBeAJ5AnoBewF8AX0BfgF_AXiK
  • A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.

Questions about George Westinghouse

Did George Westinghouse invent alternating current?

No. He bought exclusive rights to Nikola Tesla's polyphase AC patents in 1888 and built the company and equipment that put AC power to work, including the 1893 Chicago fair lighting and the Niagara Falls generators.

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