 In 1882, he patented a design for a new rotary steam engine, and took out two patents ( and ).In 1890 and 1892, while living in Woodlawn, Beard patented two improvements to the Janney coupler, (invented by Eli H. Janney in 1873 - ).The coupler Beard improved was used to hook railroad cars together, and to be operated required the dangerous task of manually placing a pin in a link between the two cars; Beard himself had lost a leg in a car coupling accident.