William Eppelsheimer

William Eppelsheimer (born January 26, 1842 in Alzey ; † June 9, 1920 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German engineer.

biography

Eppelsheimer had the first name Wilhelm, which he changed to William after moving to the USA.

He studied engineering at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic and was instrumental in the development of the cable tram in the USA and later also in England.

In 1868 he started the crossing on the HAPAG emigration ship Germany from Bremen to New York. From there he traveled on to the west coast of the USA and worked as an engineer. On December 28, 1869, he married Amalie (Amelia) Jenner in San Francisco .

In February 1872 he met the entrepreneur Andrew Smith Hallidie . Hallidie was pursuing the implementation of the idea of a cable-drawn passenger car in a hilly section of San Francisco at that time. Eppelsheimer was responsible for parts of the construction and supervised the construction of part of the cable car route ( Clay Street Hill Railroad ) until March 1874 . The project was a technical pioneering achievement and economically very successful. In the following years, Eppelsheimer designed the cable car system for the Chicago City Railway .

From 1880 Eppelsheimer worked on Europe's first cable-drawn tram, the Highgate Hill Cable Tramway , in London .

He then worked from 1885 in Edinburgh on the planning of the Edinburgh Northern Cable Tramway. Eppelsheimer then returned to his German homeland in Karlsruhe.

literature

George Hilton: The Cable Car in America, Stanford University Press 1997, ISBN 978-0804730525 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Eppelsheimer, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	January 26, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alzey
DATE OF DEATH	June 9, 1920
Place of death	Frankfurt am Main