Heiner Kuch

Heiner Kuch (born September 1, 1893 in Nuremberg , † November 18, 1976 ibid) was a German railway engineer and inventor , who was particularly known for the guardrail .

Life

In the guardrail as a special form of the railway, separate wheels are used for drive and carrying function on the one hand and for track guidance on the other. The tracking wheels touch a special guardrail. The advantage of this system is the security against derailments and higher possible speeds. Together with Jacobi, he received a German Reich patent on this invention in 1931 .

After the Second World War, Kuch developed the system further. The problem of rail joints and gaps should be avoided by slanting or overlapping rail ends (German Patent 804 443 of January 10, 1951). At the German Transport Exhibition in Munich in 1953, a 200 m long 1:33 scale model was shown.

Heiner Kuch tried to spread his idea in numerous lectures, articles in the specialist press and also in popular scientific literature. In 1953, for example, the youth book Vom Adler zur Leitschienenbahn was published , in which the development of the railway from its beginnings to the (fictional) introduction of its guardrail was presented as a highlight. The cover picture and the color plates inside the book came from Heiner Kuch himself, because he was also a painter. The book was published in 1953 by Blüchert-Verlag Stuttgart. There was a licensed edition in the Bertelsmann reading ring.

Miami Metromover

The principle of the guardrail was not used in long-distance traffic. The following railways were built in local transport:

• the 1971 metro in Sapporo , Japan
• Yukarigaoka opened in 1982 near Tokyo, Japan
• several people movers from Westinghouse (or from 1988 AEG-Westinghouse) at airports in the USA, Great Britain and, since 1994, also in Germany at Frankfurt am Main Airport
• the Metromover, which opened in Miami in 1986
• the Las Colinas Personal Transit System opened in Irving, Texas in 1989 .
• the peachliner opened in 1991 in Komaki near Nagoya (Japan) (closed at the end of 2006)

After 1960, Kuch developed the "new form of guardrail track", in which the vehicles on rubber-tyred wheels could drive on normal roads with both track guidance and conventional steering. This idea was later realized with the track bus (practical applications in Essen and on the Adelaide O-Bahn, among others ).

As a painter, Heiner Kuch created pictures of means of transport, especially railway trains. In addition, he dealt with historical cityscapes and mystical topics. In 1993 there was a commemorative exhibition in Nuremberg under the title Triumph der Kunst .

literature

• Kuch, Heiner: The guardrail. In: Der Eisenbahner, vol. 13 (1960)
• Kuch, Heiner / Jacobi, Heinrich: The guardrail. In: Der Stadtverkehr, Vol. 7 (1962) No. 11/12 pp. 274–278
• Birmann, Fritz: The Kuch guardrail in a new design. In: Revue de l´UITP, Vol. 12 (1963) No. 10 October 1963, pp. 231-234
• Gottwaldt, Alfred: Guardrail and Streamline - Memories of Heiner Kuch. In: Yearbook Lokomotiven 2004, Brilon-Verlag pp. 21–26
• Kuschinski, Norbert: Invented in Germany, realized abroad. In: Strassenbahn Magazin, vol. 37 (2006) No. 9, pp. 48–53

Web links

• Literature by and about Heiner Kuch in the catalog of the German National Library