Josef Urbanski

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Josef Urbanski , also Urbański (born May 26, 1846 in Wadowice , † October 23, 1903 in Vienna ) was an Austrian engineer.

After completing his technical studies - according to his own statements in 1870 - he was probably in Prague, with mostly only brief interruptions, he was involved in the construction of the Hungarian Northeast Railway , the Friedau- Omra Railway, the Kremsier Railway , the Galician Transversal Railway and the Moravian Transversal Railway busy and, according to the k. k. Provincial government in Bosnia and Herzegovina from June 15, 1887 to the end of March 1888 in the road alignment there to the fullest satisfaction . From June to October 1888 it was used again for railroading, this time in the coastal area and in northern Bohemia ; He then worked on total station recordings in his home town of Galicia until January 1889 , until he began his job as an engineer for the Kremstalbahn management in Linz, where he and his wife Henriette reported to the police authorities as residing in Linz on May 26, 1889. 

Urbanski was already working on the project of a rack railway to the Pöstlingberg in 1891 . This is now the steepest adhesion railway in the world, but was originally intended as a cog railway. At that time, the planner and actual inventor Urbanski was dealt with by the Linz municipal administration "In recognition of the many efforts that the development of the project required" with a sum of 100 guilders. This, however, only after Urbanski recalled on 16 November 1896 in a letter that he "the laudable Gemeindeauschuß" at that time an amount to Trassierungskosten the projected him Pöstlingbergbahn "found in benign view" had. At that time, Urbanski lived with his wife Henriette in the house at 19 Steingasse.

Urbanski memorial plaque in House Linz, Old Town 17

In the inner courtyard of the Altstadt 17 house, a plaque commemorates Urbanski, whose idea and planning Linz owes the Pöstlingbergbahn, the steepest adhesion railway in the world: In 1893-1895, Ing. JOSEF URBANSKI, the initiator of the Linz Pöstlingbergbahn, lived in this house .
This house is also known as the Mozart House , as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the C major Symphony No. 36, KV 425 ( “Linz Symphony” ) in it in 1783 .

During his eight-year stay in Linz, Urbanski and his wife lived in seven different apartments. (Auerspergstrasse 10, Waldeggstrasse 92, still in an official apartment of the Krems operations management, Schillerstrasse 9 and Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse 30, which is now called Lustenauer Strasse, Bürgerstrasse 15).

The first trip of the Pöstlingbergbahn took place on May 29, 1898. The Urbanski couple had already deregistered from Linz on August 28, 1897 and at the time of the opening trip they were staying unknown. Josef Urbanski could not and did not want to personally experience the triumph of his spirit and the fruit of his work, probably because he was disappointed about the injustice he had suffered. 

On October 23, 1903, Josef Urbanski died of a cerebral stroke in the marital home at Ungargasse 59, Wien-Landstrasse . He was buried in Vienna's Central Cemetery , Group 63, Row 28, Grave 21. His wife, who was still registered in Vienna in 1917, probably did not spend the last days of her life in Vienna, she was not buried in her husband's grave and her name is not included in the death records of the City of Vienna. 

Awards, honors

In 1965, a street was named after Josef Urbanski in honor of the spiritual father of the Pöstlingbergbahn. The dead end that branches off from Schablederweg in a northerly direction is located in the Pöstlingberg district.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rausch: Josef Urbański , p. 332.
  2. ^ Rausch: Josef Urbański , p. 349.
  3. ^ Rausch: Josef Urbański , p. 350 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Urbanski, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Urbański, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian railway engineer
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Galicia
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1903
Place of death Vienna