Adolf Klose

The Klose engine was widely used on the narrow-gauge railways in Bosnia, and to a certain extent in Switzerland, Württemberg and Saxony.

Adolf Klose (born May 21, 1844 in Bernstadt auf dem Eigen ; † September 3, 1923 in Munich ) was Chief Engineer of the Royal Württemberg State Railways from June 1885 to 1896 .

Life

Before taking up his post in Stuttgart, he was a machine inspector for the United Swiss Railways . After a phase based on Prussian models between 1865 and 1885, mechanical engineering was realigned under Klose's tenure. It was shaped by numerous own ideas and inventions. In particular, he promoted the introduction of the compound engine for steam locomotives in Württemberg.

In 1906, Klose founded the company for thermal locomotives, Diesel-Klose-Sulzer GmbH, together with Rudolf Diesel and the Sulzer brothers . Here he led the development of the first diesel locomotive , the Diesel-Klose-Sulzer thermal locomotive with direct drive and start via compressed air, which was built in 1912 and tested until 1914.

Klose steering mechanism

The patented Klose steering mechanism bears his name , a multi-part and complex construction with which the radial adjustment of the leading and the rearmost wheel set was forced on steam locomotives and wagons to improve cornering.

Steam locomotive HG 2/3 3 "Bühler" of the Appenzeller Strassenbahn (ASt) with a Klose drive.

The "Klose steering axes" brought about a geometrically perfect centering and exact radial adjustment of the wheel sets parallel to the track axis. For narrow-gauge railways with their many arches, this was particularly important in order to keep the wear and tear on the superstructure and the wheelsets low and to allow rapid travel. For rack railways - such as the Appenzeller Strassenbahn (ASt) - there was the advantage that even with larger locomotives with two toothed wheels that were relatively far apart, the teeth still meshed centrally and flat in the rack.

The very ingeniously developed Klose engine was particularly multi-part and therefore maintenance-intensive, which made the construction and maintenance of the locomotives more expensive. The steering axles were only used on routes with very tight bends. When sufficient long-term experience was available, Klose's construction proved itself in most railway companies. A few more than a hundred built locomotives and several hundred wagons that were in the toughest service in Bosnia and Württemberg are proof of the suitability. The machines were z. Some of them have been repeatedly reordered for almost 20 years, partly unchanged, or new genres of this variety have been released. Test drives with the narrow-gauge locomotives in Württemberg showed that the locomotives would have been suitable for speeds of 45 to 50 km / h instead of the usual 30 km / h. However, since these were sufficient, the plan was not to drive any faster. In Bosnia, the locomotives were specifically developed for speeds of up to 50 km / h and were also used to increase the average speed of passenger trains on long routes. During test drives, 65 km / h were easily reached with the much-praised smooth run. The effort to maintain the engines and steering linkage was greater than with other designs. However, this was economical until the appearance of simpler designs, because replacing prematurely worn rails, especially on long and inaccessible routes such as in Bosnia, would have been more expensive.

A total of over 150 locomotives were built according to the Klose system, for the gauges 750/760, 1000 and 1435 mm. This type of construction was therefore much more widespread than other special constructions for curve-going engines. With good care, Klose constructions achieved a considerable service life with excellent performance. Most of the machines in Bosnia were in active use for over 70 years, until 1967, although they could have been replaced by other types long ago. They were very popular with the staff and were considered "girls for everything" until the appearance of more powerful machines. The Klose type thus proved to be more stable than the Mallet type, for example . The successor Gölsdorf / Helmholtz design reduced the maintenance costs in the workshops, but again generated considerably more wear and tear on the track.

None of the machines have survived. A corresponding intention of the German Society for Railway History to save a locomotive in Bosnia came a little too late, as did efforts by the Austrian Club 760 . The machine should have supplemented the Württemberg narrow-gauge freight wagon with a Klose chassis that was received from the DGEG. Such wagons are preserved today from the German Railway Association and the Öchsle Railway in Upper Swabia. Bosnian-style wagons are available in the Požega narrow-gauge museum in Serbia and on the Šarganska osmica museum railway in Serbia / Bosnia. The main dimensions of the chassis of the wagons for Bosnia and Württemberg almost completely corresponded, as they were developed by Adolf Klose around the same time.

literature

• Mühl / Seidel: The Württemberg State Railways . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart and Aalen, 1970
• Kester, Cheith: The narrow-gauge railways of Bosnia-Hercegowina . Stenvall, Malmö 2008
• Walther Fischer:  Klose, Adolph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 121-123 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• People of the city of Bernstadt on the property
• The Klose Articulated Locomotives

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred Moser: The steam operation of the Swiss railways 1847-1966. Birkhäuser Verlag Basel and Stuttgart 1967, fourth redesigned and updated edition, pages 382.
2. ^ Raimar Lehmann: Steam locomotive special designs . Springer, Basel, ISBN 978-3-0348-6757-3 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Adolf Gross	Chief Engineer of the Royal Württemberg State Railways 1885 - 1896	Eugene Kittel