Kaspar Wetli

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kaspar Wetli

Kaspar Wetli (born September 1, 1822 in Allenberg (municipality of Männedorf ), † March 30, 1889 ) was a Swiss engineer .

Life

Wetli completed an engineering degree and matriculated with the number 820 at the University of Zurich . He then became a Zurich canton engineer and was responsible for road construction. But he achieved his best-known successes in railway construction. He was the initiator of the right Lake Zurich line of the Swiss Northeast Railway . When the municipality of Wädenswil intended to build a road to the pilgrimage site of Einsiedeln, they turned to Kaspar Wetli as the engineer responsible. He also had experience in railway construction and laid the foundation stone for the Wädenswil-Einsiedeln railway , which was to be operated with the Wetli roller wheel system he developed in order to be able to cope better with the steep ramp of 5%. (The Wädenswil – Einsiedeln railway line still exists today and, despite the incline and slope, is a pure adhesion railway.) The roller wheel system was judged favorably by experts at the Polytechnic in Zurich in 1869 and its advantages over other systems were emphasized. After the construction of a test route in 1874, the route to Einsiedeln was completed by 1876. During the first test drives, a rising of the roller was observed and Wetli ordered various reworking. However, after the roller wheel rose again during the official test drive on November 30, 1876 - depending on the source - or it was driven down to the valley without the roller system "after some interference in operation" and the test train above Wädenswil burned out, the system had no chance more.

In addition, Wetli was also chief engineer of the Glatthalbahn of the United Swiss Railways (VSB; not to be confused with the Zurich North tram network, which is also known as the Glattalbahn ) and was involved in the studies of the Lukmanierbahn , which was never implemented .

He was also responsible for improving the orthogonal planimeter . The design improved by him is called the Wetli-Hansen orthogonal planimeter design .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hefti Walter, Unconventional Mountain Railways. Birkhäuser, Basel and Stuttgart, 1978, ISBN 3-7643-1005-7
  2. ^ Oswald Gerhard and Michel Kaspar: Die Südostbahn. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-280-02048-4
  3. ^ Alfred Moser: The steam operation of the Swiss railways 1847-1966. 4th edition. Birkhäuser, Basel and Stuttgart, 1967, DNB 457638753
personal data
SURNAME Wetli, Kaspar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenberg, Männedorf
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1889