European Central Railway Company

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European Central Railway Company Ltd.

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1864
resolution 1870
Reason for dissolution Insolvent
Seat London , EnglandUnited KingdomUnited Kingdom 
management William Henry Sykes
Branch Transport company

The European Central Railway Company Limited , abbreviated to ECR , was a railway company with headquarters in London , which had the task of building railway lines in the canton of Ticino , which were to serve as access to a route crossing the Alps - either over the Luckmanier or Gotthard Pass . However, the company's management primarily pursued speculative goals and was less interested in railway construction. After the company became insolvent in 1870 , it had to be liquidated. The railway lines in Ticino were later built by the Gotthard Railway.

In official documents the company is called Limited European Centralbahngesellschaft or Central European Railway Company in German , Società della ferrovia Centrale-Europea in Italian and Compagnie du Chemin de fer central européen in French .

history

concession

On June 12, 1863, investors around the English banker Robert George Sillar received the concession from the Ticino government to build and operate the railway line from Chiasso via Bellinzona to Biasca and a branch line from Bellinzona to Locarno . The concession stipulated that construction work should start no later than six months after the concession was granted. All routes would have to be completed within three years of the start of construction; five years were only allowed for the Bellinzona – Lugano section. Sillar received the concession because it has not yet made a preliminary decision for the continuation to the north, which could have been directed towards the Gotthard Pass as well as the Lukmanier Pass. However, the concession also contained the mandate to submit a proposal for an Alpine crossing within two years.

The concession of the investors around Robert Sillar was officially transferred to the European Central Railway Company on October 12, 1864 . After the construction progress on the railway lines was insufficient and it was no longer possible to meet the deadlines for completing the lines specified in the concession, the Federal Assembly declared the concession to have expired on December 21, 1866.

Railway construction

Just a month after the concession had been granted, it was clear that the company had no interest in building the railway itself, because it tried to sell the concession for a profit to the Parisian building contractor Lorenz Ludwig Mouton . The contractor previously applied for a concession on the same railway lines as Sillar. Construction began on January 20, 1864 so that the concession would not expire due to failure to start construction. To this end, bankers from the circle of Sillar founded the European Central Railway Company headed by the British politician William Henry Sykes . The construction work was awarded to the entrepreneurs Villa and Pietro Genazzini. Villa was to build the construction lots from the Verzasca to the Moësa and from Cresciano to Biasca, which together were 24 km long, Pietro Genazzini was to build the 32 km long stretch from Paradiso to Bellinzona . The substructure for the stretch from the sea ​​dam from Melide to Chiasso was awarded to Bolla from Chiasso. The technical office of the European Central Railway takes care of the land acquisition and the superstructure of the railway lines. Its chairman was Howard Ashton Holden, the only contractor among the concessionaires.

Finances

The European Central Railway Company had raised £ 700,000 in shares issued in denominations of £ 40 or CHF 1000 , suggesting that Swiss and French investors were hoped for. The share capital in February 2020 would have corresponded to a purchasing power of around 106 million euros , although only around 20% of the share capital had been paid in because the investors hoped to be able to sell the railway on.

The company ran into financial difficulties after Black Friday of 1866 and went bankrupt in 1868 . On January 20, the Court of Chancery in London ordered the compulsory liquidation of the company. At the time of liquidation , the shares were worth £ 7 .

Preserved structures

The planned railway lines were built by the Gotthard Railway.

Two tunnels and a piece of railway track have been preserved from the European Central Railway south of Lugano at Capo San Martino ⊙ . The more northerly Cusarone tunnel led from Paradiso under the foot of Monte San Salvatore and the main road 2 , followed by a short open section, which is followed by the San Martino tunnel under the rocky promontory of the same name on Lake Lugano . The long-forgotten tunnels are to be used in the future for the cycle path along Lake Lugano.

swell

  • Martin Wanner: History of the founding of the Gotthard company . Wyss, 1880, p. 128 ( archive.org ).
  • Act of concession by the government of Ticino for the construction and operation of a railway from Chiasso to Biasca, with a branch line to Locarno . In: Schweizerisches Bundeblatt . tape III , no. 44 . Bern October 13, 1863, p. 667-674 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Martin Wanner, p. 125 , note 25
  2. ^ Federal Council: Report of the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly on the Ticino Railways . November 6, 1865 ( admin.ch [PDF]).
  3. ↑ a b c d Federal Court: 28th Sentenza del 24 fébraio 1877 nella causa Teodoro Sperindio Cirla . Bern ( unibe.ch [PDF]).
  4. ↑ Martin Wanner, p. 129
  5. ^ Carlo Moos: The 'other' Risorgimento: The Milanese democrat Carlo Cattaneo in exile in Switzerland 1848-1869 . LIT Verlag Münster, ISBN 978-3-643-80310-8 ( google.ch [accessed on February 10, 2020]).
  6. ^ Act of concession, Art. 3
  7. ↑ a b Escher, Alfred., Jung, Joseph., Fischer, Bruno., Alfred Escher Foundation (Switzerland): Alfred Escher between Lukmanier and Gotthard: Letters on the Swiss Alpine Railway Issue 1850-1882 . tape 1 . Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-380-0 , Escher's change of course and the Gotthard Conference of 1863, p. 151–161 ( alfred-escher.ch ).
  8. ↑ Act of concession, Art. 30
  9. ↑ Martin Wanner, p. 128
  10. ↑ £ 700,000 in 1864 → 2020. In: UK Inflation Calculator. Retrieved February 10, 2020 .
  11. ↑ International Bond & Share Society: Scripophily (August 1999) . August 1, 1999 ( archive.org [accessed February 10, 2020]).
  12. ^ Giacomo Paolantonio: Il tunnel dimenticato rivede la luce. In: Corriere del Ticino. May 27, 2019, accessed on February 9, 2020 (it-CH).