Life

Gustav Wittfeld was born in Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, Germany, on 27 October 1855. After attending state school he studied at the polytechnic in Aachen from 1874 to 1878. Following that the young engineer joined the Prussian state railways

Prussian state railways

The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...

. He spent his early years in the railway divisions of Bromberg, Cassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

He was promoted to government master builder (Regierungsbaumeister) in 1884 and was involved in the construction of Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof

Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof

is the central station for Frankfurt am Main. In terms of railway traffic, it is the busiest railway station in Germany. With about 350,000 passengers per day the station is the second most frequented railway station in Germany and one of the most frequented in Europe.- Proto-history :In the late...

. After transferring to the Berlin railway division in 1891 he again joined the department for the construction and procurement of locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

s within the Prussian state railways

Prussian state railways

The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...

. He played a major part in the committee set up for Prussian locomotive construction standards.

In 1902, at the instigation of Wittfeld, the Prussian railway administration and AEG began trials with single-phase alternating current for use as a source of traction. The testing lasted until 1906 and took place on the 4.1 km long suburban route from Niederschöneweide to Spindlersfeld (near Berlin) using 6 kV 25 Hz AC. This technology was used initially when the Hamburg-Altona City and Suburban Railway was electrified, a venture in which Wittfeld was also involved. Wittfeld was the first to recorgnise the importance of single-phase AC for electric traction and was a driving force behind the electrification of the first standard gauge railway in Germany from Dessau

Dessau

Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...

 to Bitterfeld

Bitterfeld

Bitterfeld is a town in the district Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 July 2007 it has been part of the town Bitterfeld-Wolfen. It is situated approx. 25 km south of Dessau, and 30 km northeast of Halle...

 opened on 1 April 1911.

In 1904, with Wittfeld's involvement, two 2'B2'n3v - experimental steam locomotives emerged: "Altona 561 and Altona 562" with streamlining and a cab at the front. After these proved a failure due to the cost of the trial, Gustav Wittfeld turned increasingly to electric traction and designed the Prussian Class ES, EP and EG electric locomotive

Electric locomotive

An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or an on-board energy storage device...

s. Even today the design of the Class AT 3 accumulator cars (later DRG Class ETA 178) is associated with the name of Wittfeld. They were still in service until the early 1960s. These designs and his perseverance earned Wittfeld the reputation of being a trailblazer in the field of electric train transportation.

In 1917 he became an honorary Doctor of Engineering at the TH Charlottenburg for his work on the electrification of the railways. In 1918 he was promoted to Wirklicher Geheimer Oberbaurat and retired in 1920. As his successor he appointed Wilhelm Wechmann, later to become Chief Electrical Engineer of the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

On 24 September 1923, plagued from ill-health, Wittfeld committed suicide.

External links

• There is a relevant English-language forum at Railways of Germany