Excerpt:
Although Hollerith made a very significant contribution to the development of the modern electronic computer with his punched card technology not all his ideas were similar great successes. In the 1880s, at the same time as he was developing his first punched card system, he invented a new brake system for trains. However his electrically actuated brake system lost out to the Westinghouse steam-actuated brake.
Annotation:
Short account of the life and work of Herman Hollerith. Part of a large biographical collection of mathematicians.