James Millholland railway master mechanic, is particularly well known for his invention of many railway mechanisms. His association with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company

Reading Company

The Reading Company , usually called the Reading Railroad, officially the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and then the Philadelphia and Reading Railway until 1924, operated in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states...

 as master machinist spanned fifty years in the early development of the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 railroad. He also founded the locomotive shops at Mount Savage, Maryland

Mount Savage, Maryland

Mount Savage is an unincorporated community in Allegany County, Maryland, United States. A small blue-collar community, Mount Savage lies at the base of Big Savage Mountain in the Allegheny Mountains, between the cities of Frostburg and Cumberland...

, the center of the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad

Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad

The Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad was an American railroad which operated in Western Maryland. Primarily a coal hauler, it was owned by the Consolidation Coal Company, and was absorbed into the Western Maryland Railway in 1944....

.

Millholland's inventions and contributions include the cast-iron crank axle, wooden spring, plate girder bridge

Plate girder bridge

A plate girder bridge is a bridge supported by two or more plate girders. The plate girders are typically I-beams made up from separate structural steel plates , which are welded or, in older bridges, bolted or riveted together to form the vertical web and horizontal flanges of the beam...

, poppet throttle, anthracite firebox, water grate, drop frame, and steel tires. He was also an early user and advocate of the superheater, the feedwater heater

Feedwater heater

A feedwater heater is a power plant component used to pre-heat water delivered to a steam generating boiler. Preheating the feedwater reduces the irreversibilities involved in steam generation and therefore improves the thermodynamic efficiency of the system...

, and the injector. Several of his innovations were adopted as standard practice by the railroad industry.

His son, James A. Millholland

James A. Millholland

James Allaire Millholland, the son of James Millholland, was as a railroad executive, serving as General Manager and later President of the Georges Creek and Cumberland Railroad in Cumberland, Maryland, USA, which served coal mines in the Georges Creek Valley....

, was a railroad executive.