Franz Anton von Gerstner

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Franz Anton von Gerstner

Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner (born April 19, 1796 in Prague , † April 12, 1840 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was a German- Bohemian engineer , professor and railway pioneer .

Life

Memorial plaque and sculpture in Linz

The son of the technician Franz Josef von Gerstner studied engineering , philosophy , technology and mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic in Prague . From 1817 he taught practical geometry and land surveying as a professor at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna .

From 1820 he worked with his father on the pioneering project of a Danube - Vltava railway on the Budweis to Linz route, and in 1822 made his first trip to England to study railway construction . In 1824 he resigned his professorship in accordance with his contract and became construction manager for the construction of the Budweis – Linz – Gmunden horse-drawn railway . In this capacity he made a second study trip to England in 1826/27. In 1828 he left the construction site because of growing differences of opinion with the shareholders of the operating company on the construction process, which was becoming more costly than planned. The railway line was completed by Mathias von Schönerer and opened on August 1, 1832.

Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner continued to work in railway construction. In 1829 he undertook a third study trip to England and in 1834 became the planning officer for several railway lines in Russia , where in 1836/37 he realized the St. Petersburg - Tsarskoye Selo - Pavlovsk route (also called the Tsarskoye-Selo Railway ). From 1838 he studied the North American railway system on behalf of representatives of the Russian Imperial Court and in his own interest. After his second marriage to Klara (* 1813 - after 1881), daughter of Friedrich von Epple (n) (1782–1848), Thurn and Taxi'scher Hofrat and General-Post-Directorate in Frankfurt am Main and the birth of the daughter Philadelphia von Gerstner (* 1839) died in Philadelphia in 1840 shortly before his 44th birthday. In his first marriage he was married to Marquise Josefine von Lambolin (Lambelin) (1805-1835).

recognition

In 1903 in Vienna Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus (15th district) Gerstnerstraße was named after him.

His pioneering work as a railway engineer

The technical achievement of Franz Anton von Gerstner consists mainly in giving a clear rejection of the English "Inclined Planes System" (= "Inclined Planes" with a cable for overcoming large differences in height, see steep section ) on his first trip to England (1822) to have (see Enderes 1926, Oberegger 2008). Inspired by road construction, he pleaded for a technically integrated railway system. In his opinion, a railway was a “good art road”, where special attention must be paid to the harmonious gradient. These can be achieved through the targeted installation of dams or cuts and viaducts .

Gerstner is therefore to be regarded as the "forefather" of the "mountain railway line". All the more so since he actually built one in the course of the Budweiser horse-drawn railway, namely in the Eisenhut / Kerschbaum area (completed in 1827). However, in the course of the modernization of the railway (1869–1872 / 73) it was abandoned. Today only remnants (e.g. "Great Edlbrucker Bridge") are preserved as a sight. Years later, Carl Ritter von Ghega expressed the same planning idea and implemented it in Semmering with publicly recognized success. Since Gerstner had left the construction site at the time in a dispute over financing, his performance was initially not publicly recognized.

In England, too, a country that was progressive in railroad construction at the time, the planning companies finally moved away from the "inclined planes system". Gerstner's great technical and theoretical merit was only briefly mentioned in the more recent literature. The publication Die Erste (Austrian) Railway Company and its Network (2008) by Elmar Oberegger is an exception .

Publications

  • Subjects of practical geometry teaching at the Polytechnic Institute , Prague, 1818
  • On the advantages of building a railway between the Vltava and the Danube . Vienna, 1824.
  • Report to the PT Herren Actionärs on the status of the kk privileged railway company between the Vltava and Danube, by the site manager Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner . Vienna, December 1827.
  • On the advantages of running a railway between the Vltava and the Danube . Vienna, February 1829.
  • Manual of mechanics. by Franz Joseph Ritter von Gerstner. Set up, with contributions from newer English constructions increased and ed. by Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner. Vienna 1831–1834.
  • Report on the state of operations of the railway from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo , 1838
  • Reports from the United States of North America, railways, steamboats, banks, and other public enterprises. CP Melzer, Leipzig 1839. Digitized
  • The internal communications of the United States of America . Vienna 1842–1843 (published posthumously) in the Google book search

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gerstner, Franz Anton von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerstner, Franz Anton Ritter von; Gerstner, František Antonín
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1840
Place of death Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , United States