Ferdinand Mayer (railway pioneer)

Ferdinand Mayer (* around 1767; † April 4, 1832 in Linz ad Donau ) was an important figure in (Upper) Austrian architecture and railway history .

Life

Mayer came to Linz in 1793 and took up his position there as a "landscape engineer at the municipal building authority". As a result, he rose in the hierarchy and last held the office of "kk Hofbaurate". The reconstruction of the Linz country house, which burned down in 1800, took place according to his plans, as did the construction of the Linz State Theater (1803/1804). In 1815 he finally presented a plan for a horse-drawn railway from Zizlau (Linz) to Lambach . In the context of the "salt corridor" Ebensee - Gmunden - Lambach - Zizlau (Linz) - Budweis, the Traun waterway should be bypassed in future.

Upper Austria had previously only been touched upon in terms of railway planning: Franz Joseph Ritter von Gerstner had proposed a railway connection between the Vltava and the Danube in his speech in Prague in 1808 . The state border-Danube section would have come to lie on Upper Austrian territory. Thus, the concept of the “Mayer Railway” was the first railway plan that was created in Upper Austria (or in the area of ​​the “Republic of Austria”) itself. By 1818 Mayer extended his plan to Gmunden, anticipating the southern stretch of the Budweis – Linz – Gmunden horse-drawn railway , which was completed in 1836 . The “Mayer Railway” project remained unrealized.

From today's point of view, Mayer's historical significance lies in being the "great father" of the railway connection Wels - Linz, which is important in both the Austrian and European context .

literature

• F. Aschauer: Upper Austria's railways. 1964.
• E. Oberegger: Basic lines of the railway history of Upper Austria. 2008.
• Mechtler:  Mayer Ferdinand. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 422.

Web links

• History of the Budweiser horse-drawn railway
• History of the southern line (Gmundener Bahn)
• History of the "First Railway Company"