Johann Brotan was an Austrian

Austrians

Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

 mechanical engineer, specialising in 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...

 construction.

Biography

Johann Brotan was born in Klattau, now Klatovy

Klatovy

Klatovy is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic.Klatovy is also the seat of the Municipality with Extended Competence and Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority.- History :Klatovy was founded during 1260–1263 by Přemysl Otakar II....

 in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. He studied at the Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute (k. k. Polytechnisches Institut) in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

He worked for the state telegraph construction department, for Theis Railway Company, the Hungarian Eastern Railway and the Lemberg-Czernowitz-Jassy Railway before joining the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (kaiserlich-königliche österreichische Staatsbahnen or k.k.St.B.) in 1890.

In 1902 he became the executive of the k.k.St.B. workshop at Gmünd

Gmünd

Gmünd is a town in the district of Spittal an der Drau, in the Austrian state of Carinthia.The municipality is situated within the valley of the Lieser river, a left tributary of the Drava, east of the Hohe Tauern mountain range.-Municipality breakdown:...

, later the repair shop at Vienna's Westbahnhof. He retired in 1912 and, according to one source, died in Vienna on 20 November 1918. According to other sources, he is believed to have died in 1923, but trace of him was lost in the disorganisation following the First World War.

He is known for his invention of the most successful semi water-tube locomotive boiler, known as the Brotan boiler, first fitted in 1902.

External links

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