Adolf Klose
Encyclopedia
Royal Württemberg State Railways
The Royal Württemberg State Railways were the state railways of the Kingdom of Württemberg between 1843 and 1920...
in southern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
from June 1885 to 1896.
Klose was born on 21 May 1844 in Bernstadt auf dem Eigen
Bernstadt auf dem Eigen
Bernstadt auf dem Eigen is a town in the district Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated 16 km north of Zittau, and 16 km southwest of Görlitz....
, in Saxony
Kingdom of Saxony
The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...
. Before his taking up his post in Stuttgart he had been the technical inspector of the United Swiss Railways
United Swiss Railways
The United Swiss Railways is a former railway company in Switzerland.The United Swiss railways was created on 1 May 1857 through the merger of the Glatt Valley Railway , the original Southeastern Railway and the St...
(Vereinigten Schweizerbahnen). After a period of depending on Prussian prototypes between 1865 and 1885, a new engineering direction followed under Klose's time in office. It was stamped by numerous home-grown ideas and discoveries. In particular he promoted the introduction of compound
Compound locomotive
A compound engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure cylinder, then having given up heat and losing pressure, it exhausts directly into one or more larger...
working for steam locomotives in Württemberg
Kingdom of Württemberg
The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...
.
The patented Klose steering (Klose-Lenkwerk) carries his name. This was a multipartite and complex device for steam locomotives, which controlled the radial setting of leading and trailing wheelsets in order to improve curve running. Unfortunately, its costly maintenance and tendency to develop faults meant that his invention had no lasting success, something which was true of many other of his devices.
In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam and Diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Gesellschaft für Thermolokomotiven, Diesel-Klose-Sulzer GmbH for the manufacture of Diesel-powered locomotives. The company produced one Diesel-mechanical locomotive for the Prussian State Railways in 1912.
Adolf Klose died on 2 September 1923 in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
.
Literature
- Mühl/Seidel: Die Württembergischen Staatseisenbahnen. Konrad Theiss Verlag Stuttgart und Aalen, 1970