Paulin Talabot

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Paulin François Talabot (born August 18, 1799 in Limoges , † March 21, 1885 in Paris ) was a French engineer , railway pioneer , mining entrepreneur , banker and politician .

Paulin Talabot

Life

Talabot graduated from the École polytechnique in 1819 and initially worked in the bridge and road construction administration ( Corps des ponts et chaussées ) in the Brest district , then until 1829 in the construction of the Loire Lateral Canal , which was part of the French canal system under construction. His employees included u. a. Paul-Adrien Bourdaloue .

In 1829 he was appointed by Marshal Soult , Chairman of the Board of Directors of Compagnie Perrochel in Nîmes , to engineer the company that operated the Beaucaire-Aigues-Mortes Canal .

Talabot followed the development of the railroad in England through George Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson with interest, particularly the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway in 1830. On one of his trips to England he met father and son Stephenson, whom he had for many years remained on friendly terms.

In Nîmes in 1830 he founded a project planning company to connect the then hardly developed coal deposits of Alès (then still Alais ) and La Grand-Combe / Bessèges with the Rhone shipping by means of a railway to Beaucaire . This enabled the towns in the south of France that had previously obtained coal from Saint-Étienne to be supplied more cheaply. He received the concession for the project in 1833. On July 27, 1837, the Compagnie des mines de la Grand'Combe et des Chemins de fer du Gard was founded. Entrepreneurs from Nîmes and Marseilles and the banker James de Rothschild, and finally the state with a contribution of 6 million francs, which were to be amortized by deliveries of coal to the French navy, participated in the capital of 16 million francs . Various visits from Robert Stephenson were helpful during the construction of the railroad. He supported Talabot with action and deed and delivered the locomotives, while the wagons were built in France according to his plans. The Nimes – Beaucaire section went into operation in 1839, followed by the Nimes – Alès section in 1840 and shortly thereafter the extension to La Grand-Combe.

In 1843 Talabot and his Compagnie du chemin de fer d'Avignon à Marseille received the concession for the construction of the 122 km long route from Avignon via Tarascon and Arles to Marseille . In addition to two large viaducts , the project also included the 486 m long Tarascon – Beaucaire railway bridge over the Rhône to connect Tarascon with Beaucaire and the Chemins de Fer du Gard , and the 4638 m long Nerthe tunnel , then the longest tunnel in the world, in short before Marseille, both of which were unique at the time. Despite the turbulence caused by a speculative bubble in 1847 and the revolution in 1848, the line was completed in 1849 and the Tarascon bridge in 1852.

In 1846, at the request of Prosper Enfantin , Talabot became a member of the Société d'Études du Canal de Suez , to which u. a. also belonged to Robert Stephenson and Alois Negrelli . On behalf of this company, Talabot arranged for the re-surveying of the Isthmus of Suez by a group led by Paul-Adrien Bourdaloue, who in 1847 refuted the theory that had prevailed until then, which was based on the surveying work of Jacques-Marie Le Père during Napoléon's Egyptian expedition that it there is a difference in level of more than 9 m between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea . In a detailed study of the route of a canal connection discussed over the next few years, he came to the conclusion that a canal from Alexandria to shortly before Cairo and further to Suez would cost only 162 to 200 million francs, while a direct canal would cost a third would become more expensive, especially because of the work to protect the northern canal outlet from the Nile mud (for which there were no dredgers at the time).

In 1852 Talabot founded the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Lyon à la Méditerranée ( LM ) to build the Lyon – Avignon line and to merge with the railroad to Marseille, with the Chemin de fer du Gard, and with the Montpellier – Cette ( Sète ) and Nîmes-Montpellier as well as the construction of the Marseille – Toulon extension with the Rognac - Aix-en-Provence junction . Talabot introduced the new 300 CHF bonds he had been advocating for several years . At the beginning of the Crimean War in 1854, the 105 km Lyon – Valence section was still missing . Great efforts were made to put the section into operation on April 16, 1855 and to continue to handle both military and commercial transports.

Under his influence, the Compagnie houillère de Bessèges was founded in 1854 , and from 1855 the technically difficult Alès – Bessèges line was built, which opened on December 1, 1857.

With the contracts of April 11, 1857, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon (PL) and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Lyon à la Méditerranée ( LM ) were dissolved and became the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée or Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée or PLM for short . Talabot was general director of this largest French private railway until 1882.

In 1862, at Talabot's instigation, PLM received the concession for railways in Algeria and in less than 10 years built the 506 km long Algiers - Oran and Philippeville (today Skikda ) - Constantine lines . In 1865, the Compagnie de Mokta-el-Hadid was founded for the development of the ore mines in Bône ( Annaba ), which was located in the PLM house in Paris. Talabot was its chairman of the board of directors until 1883.

Talabot was one of the first to try steel rails in railroad operations. In 1864 he initiated the construction of new port facilities in Marseille. In the same year he was involved in the establishment of Société Générale . He was also involved in the establishment of the Genoa - Cinque Terre - La Spezia railway and in the construction of the railway bridges over the Po near Piacenza and between Pavia and Voghera . He got James de Rothschild to support the railway over the Brenner . In total, Talabot was involved in around 20 different railway, mining, shipping and banking companies.

For many years he was a member of the Conseil général du Gard and from 1863 to 1870 a member of parliament ( Corps législatif ). Due to progressive blindness, he had to finally withdraw from the business in 1882. He died on March 21, 1885 at the age of 86. A bust in the main train station in Nîmes commemorates him.

See also

Web links

Commons : Paulin Talabot  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Suez Canal cost 426 million francs to be completed.
  2. ↑ Up until then there were only obligations over CHF 1000.
  3. ↑ The route was included in the PLM after 10 years.
  4. ↑ The route is 88 km long and has 89 tunnels with a total of 45 km in length.
  5. ↑ 600 m long
  6. ↑ two-story, 826 m long
personal data
SURNAME Talabot, Paulin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Talabot, Paulin François (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French engineer, railway pioneer, mining entrepreneur, banker and politician, member of the National Assembly
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Limoges
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1885
Place of death Paris