Karl Gölsdorf (8 June 1861 – 18 March 1916) was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer.

Early life

Karl Gölsdorf was born on 8 June 1861 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, the son of Louis Adolf Gölsdorf. Even as a schoolboy he was introduced to locomotive design by his father, the chief mechanical engineer (''Maschinendirektor'') of the Imperial and Royal Southern Railway (''k.u.k. Südbahn''). From 1880 to 1884 he attended the Vienna Technical High School and completed his diploma with distinction. In 1885 he joined the ''Wiener Maschinenfabrik'' (Vienna engineering works) as a design engineer. In 1889 he became head of assembly for locomotive construction. On 1 November 1891 he joined the design office of the Austrian State Railway as an engineer-''Adjunkt'' and began his creative work there.

Inventions

In 1893 he invented an effective starting system for

compound locomotives A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in s ...

. Until then the locomotive starting systems in common use in Austria, with its sometimes taxing railway lines, did not enable trains to be started reliably. Also thanks to Gölsdorf was the practical idea that a higher

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, centr ...

pitch on steam locomotives had no real disadvantages. A study visit to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1899 was to heavily influence the use of form in his designs. Gölsdorf became especially well known as a result of his inventing the radially-sliding

coupled axle On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). On a conventional, non-articulated locomotive, the driving wheels are all coupled tog ...

for steam locomotives, the so-called

Gölsdorf axle The Gölsdorf axle system is used on railway Gölsdorf locomotives to achieve quiet running and low wear-and-tear when negotiating curves. The axle system comprises a combination of fixed axles and axles that can slide transversely, all within a si ...

. The first engine to be equipped with this was an eight-coupled steam locomotive in 1897, the .The ten-coupled , whose first, third and fifth axles were able to slide sideways in the frame, demonstrated that, in almost all cases, locomotives with multi-part frames and complicated articulated designs would be superfluous. From that time forward this type of construction became the standard for heavy goods locomotives. From 1893 to 1916, Karl Gölsdorf was the chief design engineer of the

Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways The Imperial-Royal State Railways (german: k.k. Staatsbahnen) abbr. ''kkStB'') or Imperial-Royal Austrian State Railways (''k.k. österreichische Staatsbahnen'',The name incorporating "Austrian" appears, for example, in the 1907 official state ha ...

(''kaiserlich-königlichen österreichischen Staatsbahnen'' or ''kkStB'') and developed 25 different classes of steam locomotive (in 47 variants) during his career. Amongst his designs were such well-known types as the Class 30 operated by the

Vienna Stadtbahn The Vienna Stadtbahn (german: Wiener Stadtbahn) was a rail-based public transportation system operated under this name from 1898 until 1989. Today, the Vienna U-Bahn lines U4 and U6 and the Vienna S-Bahn (commuter rail) run on its former lines. ...

, the ''Atlantics'' of classes and , and the ten-coupled . Notable 'special' designs included the

rack railway A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with th ...

locomotives of Class 269 for the ''Erzbergbahn'' and the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

Yv for the '' Ybbstalbahn''. Karl Gölsdorf continually utilized the emerging technologies of the time. His locomotive of 1911, a six-coupled express locomotive with a four-

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

superheated A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. There are ...

compound engine, was one of the most elegant of its day and, since the reactivation of no. 310.23 in 1986, currently the most well-known product of the Austrian design engineer. As a result of his inventions, in 1910 he was made a Doctor of Engineering at Hannover Technical University. In 1913 he was appointed as department head. Karl Gölsdorf was an active member of the German Railway Administrations Union and also brought his expertise to bear as the co-publisher of the paper ''Eisenbahntechnik der Gegenwart'' (''Railway Technology Today''). His collection of photographs earned special fame in connexion with this; it is owned today by the

Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...

Death

Karl Gölsdorf died unexpectedly on 18 March 1916 at Wolfsbergkogel whilst staying in Semmering, Austria, of an acute throat infection and not, as incorrectly reported in media at the time, from the consequences of an accident with a locomotive.

Citations

The saying that "you can't save a tonne of weight on a locomotive - but you can save a kilo in a thousand places" (''Man kann an einer Lokomotive nicht eine Tonne Gewicht einsparen - wohl aber an tausend Stellen ein Kilo'') is attributed to Gölsdorf.

Preservation

Two members of Gölsdorf's magnificent 310 class survive in preservation today, one of which is operational. 310.23 is owned and operated by the Strasshoff Railway Museum.

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Golsdorf, Karl 1861 births 1916 deaths Austrian railway mechanical engineers Engineers from Vienna TU Wien alumni Locomotive builders and designers