Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner (11 May 1796 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

– 12 April 1840 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Pennsylvania, United States) was a German-

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

, professor and

railway pioneer A railway pioneer is someone who has made a significant contribution to the historical development of the railway (US: railroad). This definition includes locomotive engineers, railway construction engineers, operators of railway companies, major ...

Career

The son of physicist and railway pioneer Franz Josef Gerstner, Franz Anton von Gerstner studied engineering, philosophy, technology and mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic in Prague. From 1817 he taught practical geometry and land surveying as a professor at the

Vienna Polytechnic Institute TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

. From 1820 he worked with his father on the pioneering project of the Budweis to

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

section of a Danube–Vltava railway and in 1822 made his first trip to England to study railway construction. In 1824 he resigned his professorship in accordance with his contract and became construction manager for the Budweis–

–

Gmunden Gmunden () is a town in Upper Austria, Austria in the district of Gmunden (district), Gmunden. It has 13,204 inhabitants (estimates 2016 ). It is much frequented as a health and summer resort, and has a variety of lake, brine, vegetable and pine-c ...

horse-drawn

wagonway Wagonways (also spelt Waggonways), also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded Steam locomotive, steam-powered rail transport, railways. The t ...

in the Eisenhut/Kerschbaum area. In this capacity he made a second study trip to England in 1826/27. In 1828 he left the construction because of growing differences of opinion with the shareholders of the operating company on the construction process, which was becoming more costly than planned. The railway line was completed by Matthias von Schönerer and opened on 1 August 1832. Tzarskoselskaya Railway - Watercolour

von Gerstner continued to work in railway construction. In 1829 he undertook a third study trip to England and in 1834 became the planning officer for several railway lines in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, where in 1836/37 he realized the

Tsarskoye Selo Railway The Tsarskoye Selo Railway (russian: Царскосе́льская желе́зная доро́га) was the first public railway line in the Russian Empire.

which opened from

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

on 30 October 1837. From 1838 he studied the North American railway system on behalf of representatives of the Russian tsarist court and in his own interest.

Personal life

His first marriage was to Marquise Josefine von Lambolin (Lambelin) (1805–1835). His second was to Klara (1813–after 1881), daughter of Friedrich von Epple (1782–1848), a public official in Frankfurt am Main, and she gave birth to their daughter Philadelphia von Gerstner in 1839. He died shortly before his 44th birthday in Philadelphia. In 1903, Gerstnerstraße in Vienna was named after him.

Technical achievement

The technical achievement of Franz Anton von Gerstner mainly consists in giving a clear rejection of the "

inclined plane An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...

system" (with a cable for overcoming large differences in gradient) favoured by English engineers like

George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...

on his first trip to England (1822).Enderes 1926; Oberegger 2008. Inspired by road construction, he pleaded for a technically integrated railway system. In his opinion, a railroad should have special attention paid to even gradients, achieved through strategic installation of embankments or cuts and viaducts. Gerstner is therefore to be regarded as the forefather of the

mountain railway A mountain railway is a railway that operates in a mountainous region. It may operate through the mountains by following mountain valleys and tunneling beneath mountain passes, or it may climb a mountain to provide transport to and from the sum ...

, all the more so as he actually built one in the shape of the Budweis–Linz–Gmunden railway, but as he had left its construction before completion, his performance was initially not publicly recognized. In the course of the modernization of the railway (1869–1872/73), however, it was abandoned. Today only remains (e.g. the Great Edlbrucker Bridge) are preserved as relics. Years later,

Carl Ritter von Ghega Karl Ritter von Ghega or Karl von Ghega (10 January 1802 – 14 March 1860) was an Austrian nobleman and the designer of the Semmering Railway from Gloggnitz to Mürzzuschlag. During his time, he was the most prominent of Austrian-Albanian rail ...

expressed the same planning idea and implemented it on the Semmering railway with publicly recognized success. In England, too, a country that was progressive in railroad construction at the time, the planning companies finally moved away from inclined planes. Gerstner's great technical and theoretical merit is only briefly mentioned in recent literature; an exception is the publication ''Die Erste (österreichische) Eisenbahngesellschaft und ihr Netz'' (2008) by Elmar Oberegger.

Publications

* ''Lehrgegenstände der praktischen Geometrie am polytechnischen Institut'', Prag, 1818. * ''Über die Vortheile der Anlage einer Eisenbahn zwischen der Moldau und Donau''. Wien, 1824. * ''Bericht an die P.T. Herren Actionärs über den Stand der k. k. privilegierten Eisenbahn-Unternehmung zwischen der Moldau und Donau, vom Bauführer Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner''. Wien, Dezember 1827. * ''Über die Vortheile der Unternehmung einer Eisenbahn zwischen der Moldau und Donau''. Wien, Februar 1829. * ''Handbuch der Mechanik. von Franz Joseph Ritter von Gerstner. Aufgesetzt, mit Beitr. von neuern englischen Konstruktionen vermehrt u. hrsg. von Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner.'' Wien 1831–1834. * ''Bericht über den Stand der Unternehmung der Eisenbahn von St. Petersburg nach Zarskoje Selo.'' 1838. *
Berichte aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerica, über Eisenbahnen, Dampfschiffahrten, Banken und andere öffentliche Unternehmungen.
' C. P. Melzer, Leipzig 1839. *

'. Wien 1842–1843.

: ''Das katholische Deutschland (1933–1939).'' * Hubert Partisch: ''Österreicher aus deutschen Stamm.'' I (1961) – 7 (1970), Band 3. * Constantin von Wurzbach: "Gerstner, Franz Anton Ritter von". In: ''Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich''. 5. Theil. Verlag der typogr.-literar.-artist. Anstalt (L. C. Zamarski & C. Dittmarsch.), Wien 1859, S. 160 f * Erich Gierach (Hrsg.): ''Sudetendeutsche Lebensbilder.'' (Drei Bände), Band 1, 1926, S. 271 ff. * Karl Karmarsch: "Gerstner, Franz Anton Ritter von". In: ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB). Band 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, S. 69 f. * Bruno Enderes: "Die Holz- und Eisenbahn Budweis–Linz. Das erste Werk deutscher Eisenbahnbaukunst". In: ''Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie. Jahrbuch des Vereines Deutscher Ingenieure'' 16, 1926, , S. 13–64. * Josef Hons: ''František Antonín Gerstner''. Orbis Prag 1948, (''Kdo je'' 118. * "Gerstner, Franz Anton von". In: ''Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950'' (ÖBL). Band 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 1957, S. 430. * Paul Mechtler: "Gerstner, Franz Anton Ritter von". In: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (NDB). Band 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, , S. 329 f * Elmar Oberegger: ''Die erste (österreichische) Eisenbahngesellschaft und ihr Netz. 1824–1903''. Eigenverlag – Info-Büro für Österreichischen Eisenbahngeschichte, Sattledt 2008, (''Veröffentlichungen des Info-Büros für Österreichische Eisenbahngeschichte'' 2008, 5, ). *

Karl-Eugen Kurrer Karl-Eugen Kurrer (born 10. August 1952 in Heilbronn) is a German civil engineer and expert on the history of construction. Life and education Kurrer attended the primary school wing of ''Damm School'' in Heilbronn from 1959 to 1963, thereaft ...

: ''Geschichte der Baustatik. Auf der Suche nach dem Gleichgewicht''. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 2016, S. 47–48 u. S. 414–415, .

References

External links

Professor Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner in den USA (1838–1840)

(with maps)

in the catalog of the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...