Moritz help
Moritz Hilf (born December 14, 1819 in Limburg an der Lahn , † October 16, 1894 in Wiesbaden ) was a German railway civil engineer and railway pioneer.
Life
Moritz Hilf was the son of the master baker Peter Wilhelm Hilf and his wife Maria Josepha Albrecht, a daughter of the painter Theodor Albrecht . He opposed his parents' intention to learn the bakery trade and was able to complete his schooling with the help of his uncle Philipp Jakob Albrecht , painter at the court of Duke Wilhelm I of Nassau in Wiesbaden. After his first professional experience he studied from 1842 to 1844 at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe .
family
Moritz Hilf was a citizen of Usingen . On September 22, 1850, he married Bertha Eleonore Winter in Massenheim (* May 26, 1825, in Höchst ; † December 10, 1902, Wiesbaden), the daughter of Georg and Ludovike Winter. Georg Winter was state high school in Höchst , then Nassau , today: Frankfurt-Höchst. From this marriage emerged:
- Moritz Peter Joseph (born November 16, 1850, Mainz ), doctor and entomologist in Bosnia
- Adolf (born January 26, 1854, Edesheim; † August 9, 1862)
- Philipp Wilhelm Theodor (born September 1, 1855, Edesheim; † October 15, 1921, Munich ), businessman and mining entrepreneur
- Georg Friedrich Wilhelm (born March 21, 1864 - † August 25, 1926, Wiesbaden), lawyer, district judge in Rüdesheim am Rhein
Railway engineer
Start of career and Pfalzbahnen
At the beginning of his career, Hilf worked as a geodesist and technician on the construction of the Taunus Railway from Frankfurt am Main to Wiesbaden, which opened in 1840 and was headed by Paul Camille von Denis . In 1844 Denis took over the planning and construction of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway from the Rheinschanze to Bexbach , the former Bavarian / Prussian border station . He contracted Moritz help for the project. Hilf moved to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , from where he managed a construction phase as an engineer. He then planned and built the Palatinate Maximiliansbahn from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse to Weißenburg , for which he moved to Edesheim . For further work on the Palatinate Ludwig Railway, the company moved to Zweibrücken again .
Nassau
After considerable difficulties the chief engineer had with the construction of the right stretch of the Rhine for the Nassau Rheinbahn , especially the Loreley tunnel, Moritz Hilf was appointed chief engineer on April 1, 1857, initially only provisionally, and from October 1858 as a construction officer in the Nassau state service . To this end, he and his family first moved to Rüdesheim am Rhein and before 1860 to Wiesbaden. The work on the right stretch of the Rhine made rapid progress under his direction. From 1860 he was also responsible for the planning and construction of the Lahn Valley Railway , which he carried out from Limburg. In particular, he straightened the route following the winding course of the Lahn , which his predecessors had proposed in order to ensure more economical operation of the railway, and in return accepted a higher number of engineering structures . He designed some of the necessary nine lattice bridges over the river himself. The choice of Limburg as the location for the central repair shop on the route was also his work. When the railway to Limburg could start operating in 1862, Moritz Hilf was made an honorary citizen of his native city.
When the Nassau State Railroad was founded in 1861, which took over the railway lines in the Duchy of Nassau, Moritz Hilf was appointed its first technical director. He was also a member of the examination commission for road, bridge and hydraulic engineering.
Prussia
In the German War , which Nassau lost on Austria's side against Prussia and its allies in 1866 and which led to its annexation by Prussia, Moritz Hilf prevented the Lahnbahn tunnels from being blown up before the advancing Prussians by intervening with Duke Adolph von Nassau . Prussia took over the Nassauische Staatsbahn as its own railway directorate , Moritz Hilf remained in his function and the new directorate also received the Taunus Railway and the branch line branching off in Höchst from the Soden Railway . From 1868 he was entrusted with the planning and construction of the first sections of the Aartalbahn ( Diez - Zollhaus ) and the Limburg – Altenkirchen (Oberwesterwaldbahn) line to Hadamar . The plans for the Main-Lahn-Bahn (Frankfurt – Limburg), a project by the private Hessische Ludwigsbahn (HLB), are also based on plans by Moritz Hilf.
When the Royal Railway Directorate in Wiesbaden was dissolved in 1880, he decided against a further career in the Royal Railway Directorate in Frankfurt , instead contenting himself with the management of the Wiesbaden Railway Operations Office.
On April 1, 1892, Moritz Hilf retired as a Privy Councilor at the age of 72 . He soon fell ill, so that he could no longer take part in the opening of the last route based on his planning, the gap closure of the Aartalbahn between Zollhaus and Langenschwalbach , on May 1, 1894. He died on October 16, 1894 in Wiesbaden.
Work
Railway lines
Railway lines that Moritz Hilf planned and / or helped build on:
- Taunus Railway (Frankfurt am Main – Wiesbaden), opened in 1840
- Palatine Ludwigsbahn (Ludwigshafen – Bexbach Saarbrücken ), opened in 1849
- Palatine Maximiliansbahn (Neustadt an der Weinstrasse – Wissembourg / Weißenburg), 1855 Opening of the first construction phase: Neustadt - Landau
- Nassau Rheinbahn (Wiesbaden– Oberlahnstein ), 1857–1863
- Lahntalbahn (Oberlahnstein– Bad Ems –Limburg – Wetzlar), opened in 1863
- Aartalbahn (Wiesbaden – Diez), first section (Diez – Zollhaus): 1886–1889, second section (Wiesbaden – Langenschwalbach): 1868–1870, third section (Zollhaus – Langenschwalbach): 1892– (1894)
- Oberwesterwaldbahn (Limburg – Hadamar), 1868–1870
- Main-Lahn-Bahn (Frankfurt – Limburg), HLB project, from 1872
Other work
- In 1857/1858 an octagonal cast iron pavilion was built in Niederselters according to a design by Moritz Hilf, in order to be able to fill the spring water , which was sold in jugs, in a hygienically perfect way.
- From 1864 he developed an iron long sleeper superstructure "System Hilf", which provided longitudinal sleepers instead of the usual cross sleepers on the railroad. The expected lower costs in maintaining this type of superstructure did not materialize , however, and with increasing speeds and loads in rail traffic, the system proved to be insufficient for the loads that occurred. Around 800 km of railway lines in Germany and Belgium are said to have been temporarily fitted with this superstructure.
aftermath
On October 26, 1912, a memorial for Moritz Hilf was erected on the forecourt of Limburg train station . The occasion was the 50th anniversary of his appointment as an honorary citizen of Limburg. There Moritz-Hilf-Straße was named after him and in Wiesbaden the forecourt of Wiesbaden-Dotzheim train station was named Moritz-Hilf-Platz .
literature
- Karl Friedrich Walbrach: Life and work of the railway planner Moritz Hilf (1819-1894). In: Nassauische Annalen 112 (2001), pp. 363-405.
- Willi Bode (2011): The construction of the Lahntalbahn - the poverty and the fear of foreign railway workers - In: Balduinstein, pp. 10-120.
Further information
- Museum im Grafenschloss, Diez: Special exhibition "150 Years of the Lahn Valley Railway" from October 2nd to December 19th, 2012
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Help, Moritz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German railway civil engineer and railway pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 14, 1819 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Limburg (Lahn) |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 16, 1894 |
| Place of death | Wiesbaden |