Mechanical Engineering Society Karlsruhe

Locomotive Donnersberg 1870, factory no. 479

OEG steam locomotive 56 in Technoseum Mannheim

OEG steam locomotive 56 serial no. 1167

The Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe was a manufacturer of steam locomotives and railroad cars that went bankrupt in 1929.

founding

The roots of the company can be traced back to the year 1836, when the entrepreneurs Emil Keßler and Theodor Martiensen acquired a mechanical workshop founded by Jakob Friedrich Messmer in Karlsruhe in 1833 . In the following year the company was renamed "Machine Factory of Emil Kessler & Theodor Martiensen". After the opening of the first Baden railway line in December 1841 , the Badenia , the first steam locomotive manufactured in Baden, could be delivered to the Baden State Railways .

In 1842 Emil Keßler took over the factory as sole owner. On March 13, 1846, he founded a second company in Esslingen, the " Maschinenfabrik Esslingen ". At the end of 1847 Keßler's financier, Bankhaus Haber, had to file for bankruptcy. The loans granted by the Karlsruhe company were to be repaid . The attempt to save the business in Karlsruhe through a takeover by the Esslingen-based company failed. The Baden state government also found it difficult to decide to support the machine factory in Karlsruhe. Ultimately, on July 20, 1848, the company was converted into a stock corporation with the new name Aktiengesellschaft Maschinenfabrik Carlsruhe . Keßler lost all of his ownership of the Karlsruhe plant, but remained director of the new company. Unfortunately the order situation was bad. Keßler tried again and again to sell locomotives from the Karlsruhe company to the Baden State Railway. The state railway did not buy enough steam locomotives to ensure its survival. Therefore, the company finally had to be liquidated on October 30, 1851. Because of its strategic importance for the Grand Duchy of Baden , it was taken over by the Baden state in 1852. On May 2, 1852, Keßler moved to Esslingen. Keßler and the Karlsruhe machine works now went their separate ways.

New beginning

The corporation, now known as the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Carlsruhe , delivered the first locomotive in 1854. She was only able to stabilize slowly. It wasn't until the business year 1867/68 that they were over the top.

The company has always been one of the smaller manufacturers of steam locomotives. Mainly designs from other manufacturers were copied under license. The main customers were the Badische Staatsbahnen, initially also the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the Königlich Hannöverschen Staatseisenbahnen . The first three locomotives on the Baltic Railway were manufactured by the mechanical engineering company Carlsruhe between 1856 and 1860.

The End

Share of 100 RM in the mechanical engineering company Karlsruhe from October 1927

After a phase of full capacity utilization in the course of the First World War , a sales crisis followed in 1925. The Reichsbahn ordered almost no new steam locomotives for several years. So in 1928 the locomotive construction of the mechanical engineering company Carlsruhe had to be stopped. Attempts to save the company by building diesel locomotives were unsuccessful. In 1929 bankruptcy had to be filed. A total of 2,370 locomotives were built in Karlsruhe from 1842 to 1928.

The factory site was initially located south of Karlsruhe city center at Karlstor. In 1902, production was relocated to a new site at Karlsruhe Westbahnhof in Grünwinkel .

In the first 30 years of its existence in particular, well-known engineers worked at the Karlsruhe locomotive forge, not only Emil Keßler, but also Niklaus Riggenbach , Carl Benz , Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach .

See also: The Rhine (locomotive)

literature

• Werner Willhaus: Locomotive construction in Karlsruhe. The history of the mechanical engineering company Karlsruhe and its predecessors. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2005, ISBN 3-88255-837-7 .

Web links

Commons : Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Maschinenbaugesellschaft Karlsruhe AG in the Stadtlexikon Karlsruhe of the city archive.
• Machine works Emil Keßler & Theodor Martiensen, Carlsruhe in the Stadtlexikon Karlsruhe of the city archive.
• Werkbahn.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Werner Willhaus: Lokomotivbau in Karlsruhe . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-837-7 , p. 12-16 .
2. ^ Werner Willhaus: Lokomotivbau in Karlsruhe . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-837-7 , p. 20 .