Wilhelm Pressel (railway engineer)
Wilhelm Pressel (born October 28, 1821 in Stuttgart , † May 16, 1902 in Pera ) was a German railway engineer . In Turkish service he designed the Anatolian railway network and thus became the actual originator of the Baghdad Railway .
Life
Wilhelm Pressel was the son of a baker and learned at the trade school in Stuttgart the profession of stonemasonry . After two years of wandering through France and Great Britain , he returned to Stuttgart in 1841 and took over the substitution of the sick professor for descriptive geometry at the Stuttgart Polytechnic without having received any special training .
Influenced by the Württemberg building director Carl von Etzel , Pressel turned to railroad construction and from 1844 to 1850 gained first experience building the railway line over the Geislinger Steige . He then worked for the Swiss Central Railway from 1853 to 1858 and directed the construction of the Hauenstein tunnel near Basel . In 1862 he followed Etzel to the Austrian Southern Railway Company and in 1865 was appointed construction director of the company. Pressel made special contributions to the completion of the Brenner Railway from Innsbruck to Bozen .
In 1869 Pressel took over the post of chief engineer at the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer Orientaux founded by Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch on Gereuth . Under the direction of Pressel, the railway connection from Dobrljin (on the border with Austria-Hungary) to Constantinople was established in the European part of the Ottoman Empire until 1872 .
In 1872 Pressel was appointed imperial general director of the Ottoman Railway by Sultan Abdülaziz . In the following years he designed a 6,800 km long Anatolian railway network. A first 91 km long section of the Anatolian Railway from Constantinople to İzmit , which the Ottoman Empire established as a state railway, was built under his leadership. However, Pressel was unable to implement his comprehensive plans against opposition from political and financial circles. The construction of the Baghdad Railway did not begin until a year after his death.
Fonts
- The construction of the Hauenstein tunnel on the Swiss Central Railway. Bahnmaier, 1860.
- Ventilation and cooling of long alpine tunnels. Vienna 1881.
- Iron superstructure, Pressel system. Vienna 1886.
- The chemins de fer en Turquie d'Asie. Zurich 1902.
Honors, prizes, awards
- On May 16, 1904, the Südbahngesellschaft unveiled a memorial plaque designed by Edmund Hofmann von Aspernburg (1847–1930) in the staircase hall (ticket hall) of the Vienna Südbahnhof .
literature
- Wolfgang Korn : rails for the sultan. The Baghdad Railway. Wilhelm II., Adventure and Spies . Fackelträger Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7716-4380-5 .
- Jgnaz Civelli: German rails in Ottoman soil. A virtual journey with the Anatolian and Baghdad railways through history, perceptions, space and time . Grin Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-640-59495-5 .
- Jonathan S. McMurray: Distant Ties. Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the Construction of the Baghdad Railway . Praeger, Westport 2001, ISBN 0-275-97063-9 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A. Birk: Pressel, Wilhelm. In: Conrad Matschoss (ed.): Men of technology. A biographical manual. VDI-Verlag, Berlin 1925, p. 210 f. Digitized
- ↑ a b P. Mechtler: Pressel, Wilhelm. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 268.
- ^ Wilhelm Füßl: Pressel, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 702 f. ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ Little Chronicle. (...) Memorial plaque for Wilhelm Pressel. In: Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 14284/1904, June 1, 1904, p. 9, top center. (Online at ANNO ). .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pressel, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German railway engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 28, 1821 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 16, 1902 |
| Place of death | Pera |