List of railway pioneers
Encyclopedia
A railway pioneer is someone who has made a major contribution to the historical development of the railway (US: railroad). This definition includes locomotive engineers, railway construction engineers, operators of railway companies, major railway investors and politicians, of national and international importance for the development of rail transport.

Where possible, inclusion in this list should be justified by an appropriate reference (see talk page).

Austria

  • John Baillie
    John Baillie (railway engineer)
    John Baillie was an English mechanical engineer who worked mainly in Austria and Germany.John Baillie was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, on 10 May 1806...

    , first sprung buffers
    Buffer (rail transport)
    A buffer is a part of the buffers-and-chain coupling system used on the railway systems of many countries, among them most of those in Europe, for attaching railway vehicles to one another....

     (so-called Bailliesche Schneckenfeder or conical springs)
  • Johann Brotan
    Johann Brotan
    Johann Brotan was an Austrian mechanical engineer, specialising in locomotive construction.-Biography:Johann Brotan was born in Klattau, now Klatovy in the Czech Republic. He studied at the Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute Johann Brotan (24 June 1843 – 20 November 1918) was an Austrian...

    , inventor of the Brotan boiler, the only watertube boiler used in any number on the railways
  • Anton Elbel
    Anton Elbel
    Anton Elbel was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer.Anton Elbel was born in Vienna on 6 January 1834 and attended the Polytechnic Institute there. In 1856 he started work for the Carinthian Railway...

    , Gepäcklokomotive, locomotive with luggage compartment.
  • Wilhelm von Engerth, Engerth locomotive
    Engerth locomotive
    The Engerth locomotive was a type of early articulated steam locomotive designed by Wilhelm Freiherr von Engerth for use on the Semmering Railway in Austria.- Designer :...

  • Carl Ritter von Ghega
    Carl Ritter von Ghega
    Carl Ritter von Ghega or Karl von Ghega was the designer of the Semmering Railway from Gloggnitz to Mürzzuschlag....

    , builder of the Semmering railway
    Semmering Railway
    The Semmering railway, Austria, which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the...

  • Adolph Giesl-Gieslingen
    Adolph Giesl-Gieslingen
    Adolph Giesl-Gieslingen was an Austrian locomotive designer and engineer.Giesl-Gieslingen was born in 1903 in Trient, Tirol, and studied at the Technical College in Vienna. In 1924 he published a technical article on smokebox design and chimneys...

    , developer of the Giesl ejectors
  • Karl Gölsdorf
    Karl Gölsdorf
    Karl Gölsdorf was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer.-Early Life:Karl Gölsdorf was born on 8 June 1861 in Vienna, the son of Louis Adolf Gölsdorf. Even as a schoolboy he was introduced to locomotive design by his father, the chief mechanical engineer of the Imperial and Royal Southern...

    , first six-coupled steam locomotive and inventor of the Gölsdorf axle
    Gölsdorf axle
    The Gölsdorf axle system is used on railway locomotives to achieve quiet running and low wear-and-tear when negotiating curves. It comprises a combination of fixed axles and axles that can slide radially, all within a single, rigid locomotive frame....

     system
  • Louis Adolf Gölsdorf
    Louis Adolf Gölsdorf
    Louis Adolf Gölsdorf was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer. He was the father of Karl Gölsdorf....

    , Gepäcklokomotive
  • John Haswell
    John Haswell
    John Haswell was an engineer and locomotive designer.He was born on 20 March 1812 in Lancefield, Glasgow, Scotland, studied at Anderson's University in Glasgow and worked for 22 years in the shipbuilding office of William Fairbairn & Co.In 1837 at the prompting of Matthias Schönerer, who was also...

    , first steam brake, sheet steel firebox
  • Hugo Lentz
    Hugo Lentz
    Hugo Lentz was an Austrian mechanical engineer, born in South Africa. He was the inventor of many award winning improvements to the steam engine....

    , inventor of award-winning improvements to steam engines, e.g. steam valve gear with oscillating and rotating cams to actuate poppet valves
  • Julius Lott, chief construction engineer of the Arlbergbahn
  • Franz Xaver Riepl
    Franz Xaver Riepl
    Franz Xaver Riepl was an important Austrian geologist, railway and metallurgical specialist.Riepl was born in Graz, Austria, on 20 November 1790. Between 1820 and 1835 he worked as a professor at the Vienna Technical University. It was from him that the initiative came to quarry the Styrian Ore...

     geologist, railway and metallurgical expert
  • Johann Rihosek
    Johann Rihosek
    Johann Rihosek was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer.Johann Rihosek was born in Maków Podhalański, Galicia, in modern-day Poland on 5 June 1869. He attended the middle school at Olmütz and later studied mechanical engineering at the Vienna Technical University...

    , classification scheme for the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (kkStB), brakes, spark arrestors
  • Rudolf Sanzin
    Rudolf Sanzin
    Rudolf Sanzin was an Austrian engineer and locomotive designer.- Life :Rudolf Sanzin was born in Mürzzuschlag, in the province of Styria, Austria on 4 June 1874. His father was an official with the Austrian Southern Railway or Südbahn. After completing his A levels he studied at the Graz...

    , measurement techniques
  • Matthias Schönerer, railway pioneer
  • Joseph Terlicher, railway pioneer
  • Carl Wurmb, builder of the Tauernbahn

Germany

  • August von Borries
    August von Borries
    August Friedrich Wilhelm von Borries was one of Germany's most influential railway engineers, who was primarily concerned with developments in steam locomotives....

    , compound working and the first Prussian compound locomotive
    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...

     in 1880
  • August Borsig
    August Borsig
    Johann Friedrich August Borsig was a German businessman who founded the Borsig-Werke factory.Borsig was born in Breslau , the son of cuirassier and carpenter foreman Johann George Borsig...

    , early locomotives built in Germany, Borsig-Werke
  • Karl Gustav Brescius
    Karl Gustav Brescius
    Karl Gustav Brescius was a German railway engineer.He was born in Bautzen, in eastern Saxony, Germany, on 25 March 1824 and studied at the Dresden University of Technology in Saxony...

    , railway construction in Saxony
    Saxony
    The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Eckhardt
    Friedrich Wilhelm Eckhardt
    Friedrich Wilhelm Eckhardt was a German engineer and head of the design office for the Berliner Maschinenbau Aktien Gesellschaft vormals L. Schwartzkopff.- Life :...

    , head of BMAG
    Berliner Maschinenbau
    Berliner Maschinenbau AG was a German manufacturer of locomotives.The factory was founded by Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff on 3 October 1852 as Eisengießerei und Maschinen-Fabrik von L. Schwartzkopff in Berlin ....

     design office, chief designer of DRG Class 44
    DRG Class 44
    The Class 44 was a ten-coupled, heavy goods train steam locomotive built for the Deutsche Reichsbahn as a standard steam engine class . Its sub-class was G 56.20 and it had triple cylinders...

     and 86
    DRG Class 86
    The DRG Class 86 was a standard goods train tank locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. It was intended for duties on branch lines and was delivered by almost all the locomotive building firms working for the Reichsbahn...

     and inventor of Schwartzkopff-Eckhardt II bogie
    Schwartzkopff-Eckhardt II bogie
    A Schwartzkopff-Eckhardt II bogie is a mechanical device to improve the curve running of steam locomotives....

    .
  • Robert Garbe
    Robert Garbe
    Robert Hermann Garbe was a German railway engineer and chief engineer of the Berlin division in the Prussian state railways from 1895 to 1917...

    , Prussian
    Kingdom of Prussia
    The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

     mechanical engineer, many classic locomotive designs
  • Richard Hartmann
    Richard Hartmann
    Richard Hartmann was a German engineering manufacturer.- Life :Richard Hartmann was born on 8 November 1809 in Barr, Bas-Rhin, the son of a tawer . In his Alsace homeland he learnt the trade of a toolmaker...

    , German steam locomotive manufacturer, Sächsische Maschinenfabrik
    Sächsische Maschinenfabrik
    The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz was one of the most important engineering companies in Saxony in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. Including its various predecessor businesses, the firm existed from 1837 until its liquidation in 1930, and...

     in Chemnitz
  • Richard von Helmholtz
    Richard von Helmholtz
    Richard Wilhelm Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German engineer and designer of steam locomotives.Richard von Helmholtz was born on 28 September 1852 in Königsberg, Prussia, the son of the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz and his first wife Olga, née von Velten.After studying in Stuttgart and Munich,...

    , German engineer, designer of the Krauss-Helmholtz bogie
    Krauss-Helmholtz bogie
    A Krauss-Helmholtz bogie is a mechanism used on a steam locomotive, where a carrying axle is connected to a coupled axle via a lever such that when the carrying axle swings to the side on going round a curve, it causes the coupled axle to move sideways in the opposite direction...

  • Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg
    Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg
    Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg was a German mechanical engineer and railway pioneer.Edmund Heusinger was born in Langenschwalbach in the state of Hesse in central Germany on 12 May 1817. In 1841 he became a master-workman with the Taunus Railway . In 1854 he was awarded a contract to build the...

    , independently designed the Walschaerts valve gear (hence aka the Heusinger valve gear)
  • Hermann Kemper, patent for maglev train technology
  • Georg Knorr
    Georg Knorr
    Theodor Georg Knorr , was an engineer and entrepreneur on the field of railroad technology and founder of the company Knorr-Bremse...

    , considerably improved compressed air brake
  • Georg Krauss, founder of Lokomotivfabrik Krauss & Co. in Munich, later part of Krauss-Maffei
    Krauss-Maffei
    The Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co KG or simply Krauss-Maffei is an injection molding machine manufacturer and defence company based in Munich, Germany...

  • Johann Friedrich Krigar first 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...

     built in the German states at the Königliche Eisengießerei Berlin in 1815
  • Alfred Krupp, discovery of seamless tyres for railway wheels in 1852
  • Adolf Klose
    Adolf Klose
    Adolf Klose was the chief engineer of the Royal Württemberg State Railways in southern Germany from June 1885 to 1896.Klose was born on 21 May 1844 in Bernstadt auf dem Eigen, in Saxony. Before his taking up his post in Stuttgart he had been the technical inspector of the United Swiss Railways...

    , chief mechanical engineer of the Royal Württemberg State Railways
    Royal Württemberg State Railways
    The Royal Württemberg State Railways were the state railways of the Kingdom of Württemberg between 1843 and 1920...

    , designer
  • Franz Kruckenberg
    Franz Kruckenberg
    Franz Friedrich Kruckenberg was an engineer and pioneer of high speed railway systems. He designed several high speed trains. His most famous train was the Schienenzeppelin....

    , engineer and designer of the Schienenzeppelin
    Schienenzeppelin
    The ' or rail zeppelin was an experimental railcar which resembles a zeppelin airship in appearance. It was designed and developed by the German aircraft engineer Franz Kruckenberg in 1929. Propulsion was by means of a propeller located at the rear, it accelerated the railcar to setting the land...

  • Alfred Lent railway construction in Prussia
    Prussia
    Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

     (including the Magdeburg-Halberstadt railway), chief civil engineer for the Berlin Lehrter Bahnhof
  • Joseph Anton von Maffei
    Joseph Anton von Maffei
    Joseph Anton von Maffei was a German industrialist. Together with Joseph von Baader and Baron Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett , Maffei was one of the three most important railway pioneers in Bavaria.-Early life:Joseph Anton Maffei was born in Munich, the son of an Italian tradesman from Verona...

    , German steam locomotive manufacturer
  • Oskar von Miller
    Oskar von Miller
    Oskar von Miller was a German engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, a large museum of technology and science....

     engineer, driving force for electrified lines in Bavaria
    Kingdom of Bavaria
    The Kingdom of Bavaria was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1806 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's dissolution in 1918...

    , founder of the Deutsches Museum
    Deutsches Museum
    The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of technology and science, with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. The museum was founded on June 28, 1903, at a meeting of the Association...

  • Walter Reichel, pantograph, electric locomotives
  • Friedrich Sauthoff, Sauthoff's resistance formula for train motion
  • Ferdinand Schichau
    Ferdinand Schichau
    Ferdinand Gottlob Schichau was a German mechanical engineer and businessman.- Biography :Schichau was born in Elbing, West Prussia to a smith and iron worker. He studied engineering in Berlin and visited the Rhineland and England. In 1837 he started his own company in Elbing...

    , Schichau-Werke
    Schichau-Werke
    The Schichau-Werke was a German engineering works and shipyard based in Elbing, formerly part of the German Empire, and which is today the town of Elbląg in northern Poland. It also had a subsidiary shipyard in Danzig .-Early years:...

  • Wilhelm Schmidt
    Wilhelm Schmidt (engineer)
    Wilhelm Schmidt, known as Hot Steam Schmidt was a German engineer and inventor who achieved the breakthrough in the development of superheated steam technology for steam engines....

    , hot steam Schmidt, developer of the superheated steam technology
  • Johann Andreas Schubert
    Johann Andreas Schubert
    Johann-Andreas Schubert was a German general engineer , designer and university lecturer.- Life :Schubert was born on 19 March 1808 in Wernesgrün in the state of Saxony in Germany...

    , first practical German steam locomotive Saxonia
    Saxonia (locomotive)
    The locomotive Saxonia was operated by the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company and was the first practical working steam locomotive built in Germany. Its name means Saxony in Latin.- History :...

     1839
  • Werner von Siemens, first electric locomotive , Siemens-Werke
    Siemens
    Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

  • Moritz Stambke, development of the German state railway norms
    German state railway norms
    In German railway engineering, norms are standards for the design and production of railway vehicles.In the 1880s and 1890s, Prussian norms were developed for the locomotives, tenders and wagons of the Prussian state railways under the direction of the railway director responsible for railway...

  • Johann Stumpf
    Johann Stumpf (engineer)
    Johann Stumpf of the Charlottenburg Technical College in Berlin is best known for popularising the uniflow steam engine, in the years around 1909, and his name has always been associated with it...

    , best known for popularising the uniflow steam engine
    Uniflow steam engine
    The uniflow type of steam engine uses steam that flows in one direction only in each half of the cylinder. Thermal efficiency is increased in the compound and multiple expansion types of steam engine by separating expansion into steps in separate cylinders; in the uniflow design, thermal efficiency...

     around 1909
  • Max Maria von Weber
    Max Maria von Weber
    Max Maria von Weber was a German civil engineer who contributed to the development of railways in Austria and Germany.-Biography:...

    , railway engineer and author
  • Richard Paul Wagner
    Richard Paul Wagner
    Richard Felix Paul Wagner was the Chief of Design in the design office of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Germany from its inception in 1922 to 1942.. He held the rank of Reichsbahnoberrat....

    , Chief of Design for Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

     1922-1942; responsible for standard locomotive designs (Einheitslokomotive
    Einheitslokomotive
    Einheitslokomotive was the name given to standard classes of German steam locomotives built from 1925 under the direction of the Deutsche Reichsbahn to certain common designs, and also to standard German electric locomotives produced after 1952 for the Deutsche Bundesbahn...

    n
    )
  • Hans Wendler railway engineer in the GDR, Wendler coal-dust firing system
  • Gustav Wittfeld
    Gustav Wittfeld
    - Life :Gustav Wittfeld was born in Aachen, 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...

    , 1855 - 1923, developments on steam locomotives and electric railway vehicles
  • Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wöhlert
    Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wöhlert
    Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wöhlert was a German businessman.Johann Wöhlert was born on 16 September 1797 in Kiel in north Germany. Trained as a joiner, in 1818 Wöhlert went to Berlin...

    , 1797 - 1877l early German industrialist and locomotive manufacturer in Berlin.

Switzerland

  • Roman Abt, Abt rack railway system, points for funicular railways
  • Jakob Buchli
    Jakob Buchli
    Jakob Buchli was a Swiss design engineer in the field of locomotive construction.- Life :Jakob Buchli was born in Chur, Switzerland, on 4 March 1876...

     development of single-axle drive, Buchli drive
    Buchli drive
    The Buchli drive is a transmission system used in electric locomotives. It was named after its inventor, Swiss engineer Jakob Buchli [Deutsch]. The drive is a fully spring-loaded drive, in which each floating axle has an individual motor, that is placed in the spring mounted locomotive frame...

  • Emil Huber-Stockar, pioneer of the electric traction with high-tension, low frequency AC
  • Eduard Locher
    Eduard Locher
    Eduard Locher was a Swiss engineer, inventor and independent contractor who received a doctorate honoris causa for his work....

    , rack with horizontal engagement
  • Anatole Mallet
    Anatole Mallet
    Jules T. Anatole Mallet was a Swiss mechanical engineer, who was the inventor of the first successful compound system for a railway steam locomotive, patented in 1874....

    , Mallet locomotive
    Mallet locomotive
    The Mallet Locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive, invented by a Swiss engineer named Anatole Mallet ....

  • Niklaus Riggenbach
    Niklaus Riggenbach
    Niklaus Riggenbach was the inventor of the Riggenbach rack system and the counter-pressure brake. He was also an engineer and locomotive builder....

    , first mountain railway in Europe with rack system, steam locomotive braking system
  • Emil Strub
    Emil Strub
    Emil Strub was a Swiss builder, railway builder and inventor who invented the Strub rack system.-See also:* Abt rack system* Rack systems...

    , Strub rack railway system
  • René Thury
    René Thury
    René Thury was a Swiss pioneer in electrical engineering. He was known for his work with high voltage direct current electricity transmission and was known in the professional world as the "King of DC." -Biography:...

    , engineer, "King of DC", experimental rack railway
    Rack railway
    A rack-and-pinion railway is a 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 this rack rail...

     in 1884 at Montreux
    Montreux
    Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...

    , responsible for many inventions especially involving series coupling of electric motors

United Kingdom

  • William Adams
    William Adams (locomotive engineer)
    William Adams was the Locomotive Superintendent of the North London Railway from 1858 to 1873; the Great Eastern Railway from 1873 until 1878 and the London and South Western Railway from then until his retirement in 1895...

     (1823-1904), Locomotive Superintendent of NLR
    North London Railway
    The North London Railway was a railway company that opened lines connecting the north of London to the East and West India Docks. The main east to west route is now part the North London Line. Other lines operated by the company fell into disuse, but were later revived as part of the Docklands...

    , 1858-1873; GER
    Great Eastern Railway
    The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...

     1873-1878 and L&SWR
    London and South Western Railway
    The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...

     1878-1895. Inventor of Adams bogie
  • William Bridges Adams
    William Bridges Adams
    William Bridges Adams was an author, inventor and locomotive engineer.-Overview:He is best known for his patented Adams Axle — a successful radial axle design in use on railways in Britain until the end of steam traction in 1968 — and the railway fishplate...

     (1797-1872), author, inventor and locomotive engineer. Inventor of Adams axle
    Adams axle
    The Adams axle is a form of radial axle for rail locomotives that enable them to negotiate curves more easily. It was invented by William Bridges Adams and patented in 1865. The invention uses axle boxes that slide on an arc in shaped horn blocks, so allowing the axle to slide out to either side...

  • John Blenkinsop
    John Blenkinsop
    John Blenkinsop was an English mining engineer and an inventor of steam locomotives, who designed the first practical railway locomotive....

    , first locomotives with rack system
    Rack railway
    A rack-and-pinion railway is a 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 this rack rail...

     and rack rails
  • Charles Beyer
    Charles Beyer
    Charles Frederick Beyer was a German-British locomotive engineer, co-founder of the firm Beyer-Peacock.-Early life:...

    , designer, co-founder and manager of Beyer, Peacock & Co. for many years
  • Louis Brennan
    Louis Brennan
    Louis Brennan was an Irish-Australian mechanical engineer and inventor.Brennan was born in Castlebar, Ireland, and moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1861 with parents...

    , inventor of a monorail
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

    , railway pioneer, construction of the Great Western Railway
    Great Western Railway
    The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

  • Oliver Bulleid
    Oliver Bulleid
    Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid was a British railway and mechanical engineer best known as the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway between 1937 and the 1948 nationalisation, developing many well-known locomotives.- Early life and Great Northern Railway :He was born in Invercargill,...

    , unorthodox locomotive designer, CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     of Southern Railway
    Southern Railway (Great Britain)
    The Southern Railway was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent...

    , designed the most powerful Pacifics in Britain
  • Thomas Russell Crampton
    Thomas Russell Crampton
    Thomas Russell Crampton, MICE, MIMechE was an English engineer born at Broadstairs, Kent, and trained on Brunel's Great Western Railway....

    , Crampton locomotive
    Crampton locomotive
    A Crampton locomotive is a type of steam locomotive designed by Thomas Russell Crampton and built by various firms from 1846. The main British builders were Tulk and Ley and Robert Stephenson and Company....

  • Robert Francis Fairlie
    Robert Francis Fairlie
    Robert Francis Fairlie was a Scottish railway engineer.- Early life :Fairlie was the son of T. Archibald Fairlie and Margaret Fairlie...

    , Fairlie locomotive
  • Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, London railway, locomotives
  • Herbert William Garratt
    Herbert William Garratt
    Herbert William Garratt was an English mechanical engineer and the inventor of the Garratt system of articulated locomotives....

    , inventor of the Garratt locomotive
  • Sir Nigel Gresley
    Nigel Gresley
    Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway . He was the designer of some of the most famous steam locomotives in Britain, including the LNER Class A1 and LNER Class A4...

    , British steam locomotive manufacturer, world-record holding locomotive, Mallard
  • Timothy Hackworth
    Timothy Hackworth
    Timothy Hackworth was a steam locomotive engineer who lived in Shildon, County Durham, England and was the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.- Youth and early work :...

    , built Hedley's Puffing Billy
    Puffing Billy (locomotive)
    Puffing Billy is an early railway steam locomotive, constructed in 1813-1814 by engineer William Hedley, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest...

    and locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway
    Stockton and Darlington Railway
    The Stockton and Darlington Railway , which opened in 1825, was the world's first publicly subscribed passenger railway. It was 26 miles long, and was built in north-eastern England between Witton Park and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, and connected to several collieries near Shildon...

    , Participant in the Rainhill trials
    Rainhill Trials
    The Rainhill Trials were an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 in Rainhill, Lancashire for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway....

  • William Hedley
    William Hedley
    William Hedley was one of the leading industrial engineers of the early 19th century, and was very instrumental in several major innovations in early railway development...

    , designer of the Puffing Billy
    Puffing Billy (locomotive)
    Puffing Billy is an early railway steam locomotive, constructed in 1813-1814 by engineer William Hedley, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest...

  • Charles Lartigue, Lartigue Monorail
    Lartigue Monorail
    The Lartigue Monorail system was developed by the French engineer Charles Lartigue . He developed a horse drawn monorail system invented by Henry Robinson Palmer in 1821 further....

  • Joseph Locke
    Joseph Locke
    Joseph Locke was a notable English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway projects...

    , next to the Stephensons and Brunel one of the most important English railway pioneers
  • Thomas Newcomen
    Thomas Newcomen
    Thomas Newcomen was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. He was born in Dartmouth, Devon, England, near a part of the country noted for its tin mines. Flooding was a major problem, limiting the depth at which the mineral could be mined...

    , first practical static steam engine
  • John Ramsbottom
    John Ramsbottom (engineer)
    John Ramsbottom was an English mechanical engineer who created many inventions for railways, including the piston ring, the Ramsbottom safety valve, the displacement lubricator, and the water trough.- Biography :...

    , mechanical engineer who invented inter alia the Ramsbottom safety valve
    Safety valve
    A safety valve is a valve mechanism for the automatic release of a substance from a boiler, pressure vessel, or other system when the pressure or temperature exceeds preset limits....

    , the displacement lubricator
    Displacement lubricator
    A Mechanical lubricator, or automatic lubricator, is a device fitted to a steam engine to supply lubricating oil to the cylinders and, sometimes, the bearings and axle box mountings as well. There are various types of mechanical lubricator....

    , and the water trough
    Track pan
    A track pan or water trough is a device to enable a steam railway locomotive to replenish its water supply while in motion...

  • Sir Vincent Litchfield Raven
    Vincent Raven
    Sir Vincent Litchfield Raven KBE was chief mechanical engineer of the North Eastern Railway from 1910 to 1922.- Biography :...

     KBE, was CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     of the North Eastern Railway
    North Eastern Railway (UK)
    The North Eastern Railway , was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854, when four existing companies were combined, and was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923...

     from 1910 to 1922
  • George Stephenson
    George Stephenson
    George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...

    , first economically usable steam locomotive
  • Robert Stephenson
    Robert Stephenson
    Robert Stephenson FRS was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son.-Early life :He was born on the 16th of...

    , son of George, winner of the Rainhill trials
    Rainhill Trials
    The Rainhill Trials were an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 in Rainhill, Lancashire for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway....

  • William Stroudley
    William Stroudley
    William Stroudley was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers of the nineteenth century, working principally for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway...

    , one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers of the 19th century, working principally for LB&SCR
    London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
    The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its apex, practically the whole coastline of Sussex as its base, and a large part of Surrey...

    . Designed some of the most famous and longest lived steam locomotives of his era
  • Patrick Stirling
    Patrick Stirling
    Patrick Stirling was Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway.His father Robert Stirling was also an engineer. His brother James Stirling was also a locomotive engineer...

    , CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     of the Great Northern Railway
    Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)
    The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....

     where his famous 8 ft singles (4-2-2's) were the principal express engines for many years, achieving world-wide fame
  • Richard Trevithick
    Richard Trevithick
    Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall. His most significant success was the high pressure steam engine and he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive...

    , "father of the locomotive", built first practical steam locomotive at Penydarran in Wales
    Wales
    Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

     in 1804
  • James Watt
    James Watt
    James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

    , improvements to the steam engine
  • Francis Webb
    Francis Webb (engineer)
    Francis William Webb was a British engineer responsible for the design and manufacture of locomotives for the London and North Western Railway .- Biography :...

    , CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     of the London & North Western Railway, a pioneer in the use of steel for locomotives
  • William Wilson, first locomotive driver in Germany

USA

  • Horatio Allen
    Horatio Allen
    Horatio Allen LL.D was an American civil engineer and inventor.Born in Schenectady, New York, he graduated from Columbia in 1823, and was appointed the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company chief engineer. In 1828 he was sent to England to buy locomotives for the canal company's projected railway...

    , designed world's first articulated locomotive
    Articulated locomotive
    Articulated locomotive usually means a steam locomotive with one or more engine units which can move independent of the main frame. This is done to allow a longer locomotive to negotiate tighter curves...

     in 1832
  • Matthias William Baldwin, Baldwin Locomotive Works, the world's largest steam locomotive manufacturer
  • Peter Cooper
    Peter Cooper
    Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...

    , first 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...

     built in the USA
  • Charles F. Kettering, developed high-speed, 2-stroke diesel engines especially for rail traction
  • Sylvester Marsh, first mountain railway
    Mountain railway
    A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade...

     in the world with a rack system
    Rack and pinion
    A rack and pinion is a type of linear actuator that comprises a pair of gears which convert rotational motion into linear motion. A circular gear called "the pinion" engages teeth on a linear "gear" bar called "the rack"; rotational motion applied to the pinion causes the rack to move, thereby...

  • William Norris
    William Norris (locomotive builder)
    William Norris was an American steam locomotive builder. He founded the Norris Locomotive Works and through this company pioneered the use of the 4-2-0 locomotive type in America during the 1840s....

    , founded the Norris Locomotive Works
    Norris Locomotive Works
    The Norris Locomotive Works was a steam locomotive manufacturing company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that produced about a thousand railroad engines between 1832 and 1866. It was the dominant American locomotive producer during most of that period, and even sold its popular 4-2-0 engines...

     and pioneered the use of the 4-2-0
    4-2-0
    Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered and coupled driving wheels on one axle, and no trailing wheels...

     (Norris type) locomotive in America during the 1840s
  • George Mortimer Pullman, Pullman Palace Car Company USA
  • Thomas Rogers
    Thomas Rogers (locomotive builder)
    Thomas Rogers was an American mechanical engineer and founder of Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey...

    , mechanical engineer and founder of Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works
    Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works
    Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a 19th-century manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. It built more than six thousand steam locomotives for railroads around the world. Most railroads in 19th-century United States...

     of Paterson, New Jersey
    Paterson, New Jersey
    Paterson is a city serving as the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199, rendering it New Jersey's third largest city and one of the largest cities in the New York City Metropolitan Area, despite a decrease of 3,023...

  • Ephraim Shay
    Ephraim Shay
    Ephraim Shay designed the first Shay locomotive and patented the type.He was born on July 17, 1839, in Sherman Township, Huron County, Ohio. His parents were James and Phoebe Shay....

    , inventor of the Shay locomotive
    Shay locomotive
    The Shay locomotive was the most widely used geared steam locomotive. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a geared steam locomotive...

  • Frank Julian Sprague, "Father of electric traction" in the USA, tramway
    Tram
    A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

    , train safety system
  • Robert L. Stevens, inventor of the Flanged T rail
  • George S. Strong, introduced new locomotives types in American much in advance of their time
  • Samuel M. Vauclain
    Samuel M. Vauclain
    thumb|Samuel Matthews Vauclain was an American engineer, inventor of the Vauclain compound locomotive, and president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. He was awarded the John Scott Award and the Elliott Cresson Medal by The Franklin Institute in 1891...

    , Baldwin Locomotive Works
    Baldwin Locomotive Works
    The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally, and later in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Although the company was very successful as a producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of...

    . Patented the Vauclain compound engine.
  • Axel Vogt
    Axel Vogt
    Axel S. Vogt was the Pennsylvania Railroad's Chief Mechanical Engineer between March 1, 1887 and February 1, 1919. He was succeeded by William Frederic Kiesel, Jr. After retiring from the PRR, Vogt continued to consult for the Baldwin Locomotive Works until his death.- References :* Pennsylvania...

    , Mechanical Engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad
    Pennsylvania Railroad
    The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

     1887-1919. Responsible for many of the beautifully proportioned and elegantly designed Pennsylvania classes. Considerable influence on modern US locomotive design
  • George Westinghouse
    George Westinghouse
    George Westinghouse, Jr was an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system...

    , designed the first through compressed air brake in trains
  • Ross Winans
    Ross Winans
    Ross Winans was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was involved in politics and was a vehement states' rights advocate...

    , a prolific inventor and builder of early American locomotives

Other countries

  • Alfred Belpaire
    Alfred Belpaire
    Alfred Jules Belpaire was a Belgian locomotive engineer who invented the square-topped Belpaire firebox in 1860....

    , Belgium, CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     and Administrative President of Belgian State Railway. Inventor of Belpaire firebox
    Belpaire firebox
    The Belpaire firebox is a type of firebox used on steam locomotives. It was invented by Alfred Belpaire of Belgium. It has a greater surface area at the top of the firebox, improving heat transfer and steam production...

  • Gaston du Bousquet
    Gaston du Bousquet
    Gaston du Bousquet was a French engineer who was Chief of Motive Power of the Chemin de Fer du Nord and professor at École centrale de Lille .-References:...

    , France, CME
    Chief Mechanical Engineer
    Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotives and rolling stock...

     (ingénieur en chef traction) of the Chemin de Fer du Nord
    Chemin de Fer du Nord
    Chemin de Fer du Nord , often referred to simply as the Nord company, was a rail transport company created in September 1845, in Paris, France. It was owned by among others de Rothschild Frères of France, N M Rothschild & Sons of London, England, Hottinger, Laffitte and Blount...

  • Arturo Caprotti
    Arturo Caprotti
    Arturo Caprotti was an Italian engineer and architect. In 1915 or 1916 he invented the Caprotti valve gear rotary cam poppet valve gear for steam engines of all kinds, but in practice it was employed almost exclusively in railway locomotives.-External links:* at www.steamindex.com...

    , Italy, invented rotating cam valve gear for locomotives, the Caprotti valve gear
    Caprotti valve gear
    The Caprotti valve gear is a type of steam engine valve gear invented in the early 1920's by Italian architect and engineer Arturo Caprotti. It uses camshafts and poppet valves rather than the piston valves used in other valve gear...

  • André Chapelon
    André Chapelon
    André Chapelon was a noted French mechanical engineer and designer of advanced steam locomotives. Engineer of Ecole Centrale Paris, he was one of very few locomotive designers who brought a rigorous scientific method to their design, and he sought to apply up-to-date knowledge and theories in...

    , France, built the most powerful steam locomotives in Europe
  • Nicholas Cugnot, France, steam coach
  • Alfred de Glehn, France, first compound locomotive
    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...

     with 4 cylinders in 1894
  • Abraham Ganz
    Ábrahám Ganz
    Ábrahám Ganz was a Swiss-born Hungarian iron manufacturer, machine and technical engineer, father of the Ganz companies....

    , Austria-Hungary, founder of the Hungarian
    Hungary
    Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

     Ganz & Cie
    Ganz
    The Ganz electric works in Budapest is probably best known for the manufacture of tramcars, but was also a pioneer in the application of three-phase alternating current to electric railways. Ganz also made / makes: ships , bridge steel structures , high voltage equipment...

    , railway wheels, coach building and electrical railway vehicles
  • Jean Jacques Meyer
    Jean Jacques Meyer
    Jean-Jacques Meyer was a French engineer, originator of articulated locomotives which bear his name.Meyer registered his first patent describing the system in 1861...

    , French locomotive designer, inventor of the articulated Meyer locomotive
    Meyer locomotive
    A Meyer locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive. The design was never as popular as the Garratt or Mallet locomotives. It can be best regarded as 19th Century competition for the early compound Mallet and also the Fairlie articulated designs....

  • Carl Abraham Pihl
    Carl Abraham Pihl
    Carl Abraham Pihl was a Norwegian civil engineer and director of the Norwegian State Railways from 1865 until his death...

    , Norway, developer of the CAP Spur alias Kapspur
  • Marc Seguin
    Marc Seguin
    Marc Seguin was a French engineer, inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge and the multi-tubular steam-engine boiler.- Biography :...

    , France, first French locomotive engineer; independent inventor of the fire-tube boiler
    Boiler
    A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...

     and blast pipe
  • Egide Walschaerts
    Egide Walschaerts
    Egide Walschaerts was a Belgian mechanical engineer, best known as the inventor of the Walschaerts valve gear for use in steam locomotives.He was born in Belgium at Fl. Mechelen...

    , Belgium, engineer and inventor of the Walschaerts valve gear (also called the Heusinger valve gear)

Austria

  • Carl Ritter von Ghega
    Carl Ritter von Ghega
    Carl Ritter von Ghega or Karl von Ghega was the designer of the Semmering Railway from Gloggnitz to Mürzzuschlag....

    , Semmering railway
    Semmering Railway
    The Semmering railway, Austria, which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the...

  • Franz Anton von Gerstner, Budweis–Linz
    Linz
    Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...

    Gmunden
    Gmunden
    Gmunden is a town in Upper Austria, Austria in the district of Gmunden. It has 13,202 inhabitants . It is much frequented as a health and summer resort, and has a variety of goat, lake, brine, vegetable and pine-cone baths, a hydropathic establishment, inhalation chambers, whey cure, etc...

     wagonway
    Wagonway
    Wagonways consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam powered railways. The terms "plateway", "tramway" and in someplaces, "dramway" are also found.- Early developments :...

  • Viktor Ofenheim, Ritter von Ponteuxin, general manager of the Lemberg-Czernowitz railway and major shareholder in several railway companies
  • Josef Riehl, railway projects, including the Stubaitalbahn, Mittenwaldbahn, Igler, Hungerburgbahn
    Hungerburgbahn
    Hungerburgbahn is a hybrid funicular railway in Innsbruck, Austria, opened to the public on 1 December 2007. The system consists of four stations:* Congress * Löwenhaus* Alpenzoo* Hungerburg...


Germany

  • Philipp-August von Amsberg, first German state railway
  • Herrmann Bachstein, initiated with his Centralverwaltung for Secundairbahnen a large number of branch lines
  • Johann Adam Beil, manager of the Taunus railway from 1840 to 1852
  • Otto von Bismarck
    Otto von Bismarck
    Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

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

     and political pressure
    History of rail transport in Germany
    German Railway history began with the opening of the steam-hauled Bavarian Ludwig Railway between Nuremberg and Fürth on 7 December 1835. This had been preceded by the opening of the horse-hauled Prince William Railway on 20 September 1831...

    , political concept behind the Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

  • Julius Dorpmüller
    Julius Dorpmüller
    Julius Heinrich Dorpmueller was general manager of Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from 1926-45 and the German Reich Transport Minister from 1937-45.- Life :...

    , general manager of the Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn
    Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

     1926-1945 and Reich Transport Minister from 1937 to 1945, planning of railway construction.
  • Paul Camille von Denis
    Paul Camille von Denis
    Paul Camille Denis, later von Denis, was an engineer, railway pioneer and participant in the Hambach Festival, the German political protest of 1832....

    , Bavarian Ludwigsbahn
    Bavarian Ludwigsbahn
    The Bavarian Ludwig Railway was the first steam-hauled railway opened in Germany. The Königlich privilegirte Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft received a concession to build a railway from Nuremberg to Fürth in the state of Bavaria on 19...

     from Nuremberg-Fürth
  • Karl Etzel, architect and railway pioneer (built, inter alia, the Brennerbahn, the Geislinger Steige
    Geislinger Steige
    The Geislinger Steige is an old trade route over the low mountain range of the Swabian Jura in southern Germany. It links Geislingen an der Steige with Amstetten and is one of the most famous ascents in the Jura...

    and the Bietigheim railway viaduct
  • Robert Gerwig
    Robert Gerwig
    Robert Gerwig was a German civil engineer.Gerwig was born on 2 May 1820 and attended the Großherzogliches Polytechnikum where he studied civil engineering, primarily road construction....

    , Schwarzwaldbahn
    Schwarzwaldbahn (Baden)
    ----The Baden Black Forest Railway is a twin-track, electrified railway line in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, running in a NW-SE direction to link Offenburg on the Rhine Valley Railway with Singen on the Upper Rhine Railway...

    , Gotthardbahn
    Gotthardbahn
    Gotthardbahn was the name of a private Swiss railway company which operated the railway line from Immensee to Chiasso . Nowadays this term usually does not refer to that company, but to the railway line itself...

  • David Hansemann
    David Hansemann
    David Justus Ludwig Hansemann was a Prussian politician and banker, serving as the Prussian Minister of Finance in 1848.- Life :...

     banker, politician, vice president of the Rhenisch railway company
  • Friedrich Harkort, Prinz-Wilhelm railway
  • August von der Heydt
    August von der Heydt
    August von der Heydt was an influential German economist.Von der Heydt was born in Elberfeld in the Duchy of Berg. During the Revolution of 1848 he was appointed as Minister to the newly created Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the Kingdom of Prussia, serving during the reigns of kings...

    , head of 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...

     from 1848 to 1869
  • Michael Knoll, Geislinger Steige
    Geislinger Steige
    The Geislinger Steige is an old trade route over the low mountain range of the Swabian Jura in southern Germany. It links Geislingen an der Steige with Amstetten and is one of the most famous ascents in the Jura...

  • Claus Koepcke, engineer and responsible for the development of the Saxon narrow gauge railways as the Geheimer Finanzrat from 1872
  • Gustav Kröhnke, engineer, pushed for the construction of the Vogelfluglinie
    Vogelfluglinie
    The ' or ' is a transport corridor between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany.As the Danish and German names imply, the corridor is also an important bird migration route between arctic Scandinavia and Central Europe.-Ferry link:The core of the connection is the ferry link between Rødby ...

  • Friedrich List
    Friedrich List
    Georg Friedrich List was a leading 19th century German economist who developed the "National System" or what some would call today the National System of Innovation...

    , German economist
  • Albert von Maybach
    Albert von Maybach
    Arnold Heinrich Albert von Maybach was a German lawyer, politician and railway passenger.- Life :Albert von Maybach was born on 29 November 1822 at Werne an der Lippe as the son of the mayor of Werne. Maybach went to the grammar school at Recklinghausen and studied law and politics at Bonn,...

    , head of 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...

     from 1879
  • Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke
    Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
    Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke was a German Field Marshal. The chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, he is regarded as one of the great strategists of the latter 19th century, and the creator of a new, more modern method of directing armies in the field...

    , field marshal, strategist
  • Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff
    Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff
    - Life :Louis Schwartzkopff was born in Magdeburg. Between 1831 and 1842 he attended the grammar school in Magdeburg as well as the trade school there, where he, together with Carl Wilhelm Siemens, studied mathematics under Carl’s brother, Werner von Siemens. From 1842 to 1845 Schwartzkopff...

    , German businessman, founded L Schwartzkopff, later Berliner Maschinenbau
    Berliner Maschinenbau
    Berliner Maschinenbau AG was a German manufacturer of locomotives.The factory was founded by Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff on 3 October 1852 as Eisengießerei und Maschinen-Fabrik von L. Schwartzkopff in Berlin ....

  • Bethel Henry Strousberg
    Bethel Henry Strousberg
    Bethel Henry Strousberg was a Jewish industrialist and railway entrepreneur in Germany during its rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century...

    , numerous routes im former Prussia and in central Europe

Switzerland

  • Alfred Escher
    Alfred Escher
    Alfred Escher was a Swiss politician and railway entrepreneur. A member of the Swiss National Council from 1848 to his death 1882, he presided over the council three times ....

    , Swiss railway law, Swiss Northeastern Railway
    Swiss Northeastern Railway
    The Swiss Northeastern Railway or NOB was an early railway company in Switzerland.In 1853 the Swiss Northern Railway merged with the Lake Constance and Rheinfall Railways under the name Swiss Northeastern Railway.The main instigator was Alfred Escher...

    , Gotthardbahn
    Gotthardbahn
    Gotthardbahn was the name of a private Swiss railway company which operated the railway line from Immensee to Chiasso . Nowadays this term usually does not refer to that company, but to the railway line itself...

  • Adolf Guyer-Zeller
    Adolf Guyer-Zeller
    Adolf Guyer-Zeller was a Swiss entrepreneur.He was the son of an owner of spinning mill and creator of a textile export trade in Zürich. After the death of his father, he led the company...

    , Jungfraubahn
    Jungfraubahn
    The Jungfraubahn is an gauge rack railway electrified at 3-phase 1,125 volts 50 Hertz, which runs 9 kilometres from Kleine Scheidegg to the highest railway station in Europe at Jungfraujoch...

  • Alois Negrelli von Moldelbe
    Alois Negrelli
    Alois Negrelli, Ritter von Moldelbe , was an engineer and railroad pioneer in Austria, Italy and Switzerland.-Biography:...

    , first Swiss railway from Baden to Zürich
  • Willem-Jan Holsboer, initiator of the Rhaetian Railway

United Kingdom

  • Thomas Brassey
    Thomas Brassey
    Thomas Brassey was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one...

    , railway entrepreneur, built railways on every continent
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

    , numerous British railway lines, broad gauge
  • Edward Pease, Initiator and operator of the Stockton and Darlington Railway
    Stockton and Darlington Railway
    The Stockton and Darlington Railway , which opened in 1825, was the world's first publicly subscribed passenger railway. It was 26 miles long, and was built in north-eastern England between Witton Park and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, and connected to several collieries near Shildon...

    , co-founder of the railway town
    Railway town
    A railway town is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site.In Victorian Britain, the spread of railways greatly affected the fate of many small towns...

     of Middlesbrough
    Middlesbrough
    Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...

  • Sir Samuel Morton Peto
    Samuel Morton Peto
    Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet was an English entrepreneur and civil engineer in the 19th century. A partner in Grissell and Peto, he managed construction firms that built many major buildings and monuments in London...

    , English railway entrepreneur (1809-1889)

USA

  • John W. Barriger III
    John W. Barriger III
    John Walker Barriger III was an American railroad executive; he successively led the Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad...

    , railway entrepreneur
  • Henry Morrison Flagler
    Henry Morrison Flagler
    Henry Morrison Flagler was an American tycoon, real estate promoter, railroad developer and partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil. He was a key figure in the development of the eastern coast of Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway...

    , Florida East Coast Railway
    Florida East Coast Railway
    The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida; in the past, it has been a Class I railroad.Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Morrison...

  • Jay Gould
    Jay Gould
    Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...

    , railway tycoon
  • E. H. Harriman
    E. H. Harriman
    Edward Henry Harriman was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Harriman was born in Hempstead, New York, the son of Orlando Harriman, an Episcopal clergyman, and Cornelia Neilson...

    , railway tycoon
  • James J. Hill
    James J. Hill
    James Jerome Hill , was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest...

    , railway tycoon
  • David Moffat
    David Moffat
    David Halliday Moffat was an American financier and industrialist.Moffat was one of Denver's most important financiers and industrialists in late 19th and early 20th century Colorado, and he was responsible for the development of the Middle Park area. He served as president, treasurer and as a...

    , railway entrepreneur
  • William Jackson Palmer
    William Jackson Palmer
    William Jackson Palmer was an American civil engineer, soldier, industrialist, and philanthropist.-Overview:...

    , railway entrepreneur
  • van Sweringen brothers
    Van Sweringen brothers
    Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and Mantis James Van Sweringen were brothers who became railroad barons in order to develop Shaker Heights, Ohio. They are better known as O.P. Van Sweringen and M.J. Van Sweringen, or by their collective nickname, the Vans...

    , railway entrepreneurs
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt
    Cornelius Vanderbilt
    Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...

    , railway tycoon, patented Vanderbilt boilers and tenders
  • Daniel Willard
    Daniel Willard
    Daniel Willard was a railroad executive best known as the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1910 to 1941. He served on or headed several government railroad commissions in World War I and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1932 due to his part in negotiating wage cuts in the...

    , railway manager

Other countries

  • Louis Armand
    Louis Armand
    For the writer and critical theorist, see Louis Armand Louis Armand was a French engineer who managed several public companies and had a significant role during World War II as an officer in the Resistance...

    , France, president of SNCF
    SNCF
    The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...

     board of directors, president of UIC
    International Union of Railways
    The UIC , or International Union of Railways, is an international rail transport industry body.- Brief history :The railways of Europe originated as separate concerns. There were many border changes after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. Colonial railways were the responsibility of the...

     and inventor of water treatment process for steam locomotives
  • Cecil Rhodes, railway construction in Africa
  • William Cornelius Van Horne
    William Cornelius Van Horne
    Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, KCMG was a pioneering Canadian railway executive.-Life and career:Born in 1843 in rural Illinois, he moved with his family to Joliet, Illinois when he was eight years old...

    , responsible for the completion of the transcontinental route of the Canadian Pacific Railway
    Canadian Pacific Railway
    The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

  • Søren Hjorth
    Søren Hjorth
    Søren Hjorth was a Danish railway pioneer and inventor...

    , Initiator of the first Scandinavian railway line from Copenhagen
    Copenhagen
    Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

     to Roskilde
    Roskilde
    Roskilde is the main city in Roskilde Municipality, Denmark on the island of Zealand. It is an ancient city, dating from the Viking Age and is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network....

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK