Carl Abraham Pihl
Encyclopedia
Carl Abraham Pihl was a Norwegian
civil engineer
and director of the Norwegian State Railways (NSB) from 1865 until his death. Pihl was one of the main architects of the use of narrow gauge railways in Norway.
, but soon chose to attend Chalmers University of Technology
in Gothenburg
(1841–1844). He then went to London
and worked as an office engineer; working on many cases related to railways, including many of those by Robert Stephenson
. After two years he started field work, with a management position at a site in Suffolk
until 1850. While working in England he also learned the art of photography. His collections remain a unique collection of Norwegian railway heritage, dating back to 1862.
Pihl returned to Norway in 1850, and started working for the road office at the Norwegian Ministry of the Interior
, but by 1851 he was hired as an engineer on Norway's first railway, the Hoved Line, where he worked on the section from Christiania
to Lillestrøm. After completion of the line in 1854 he moved back to England for a year, but returned to work on the Telemark Canal
, and later as county engineer in Akershus
. In 1855, Pihl proposed building pumping station
s and gasworks
in Skien
. Since he was the most prominent railway engineer in Norway at the time, he was hired in 1856 to work on the projects for several of the early railways in Norway, the first being the Kongsvinger Line, the Hamar–Grundset Line and the Trondhjem–Støren Line. In 1858 the office of Statens Jernbaneanlægs hovedkontor was created to manage the state railways, and Pihl was hired as director.
After the reorganization of the railways in 1865, Pihl was appointed the first director-general of the state railways. When this was transformed to the Norwegian State Railways in 1883, Pihl was appointed director of the fixed-stock division—a position he held until his death. During his last fourteen years he was considerably less influential than previously, but he remained the highest-paid civil servant in Norway at the time. In recognition of his technical assistance, the managements of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway
offered to pay Pihl's passage to Toronto for the opening of their gauge lines in the summer of 1871. Pihl insisted on paying his own way so that he would not be compromised by such a gift. He sailed from Christiana to England where he spent much time as a guest of the 3rd Duke of Sutherland
, and Sir Henry Whatley Tyler
, visiting John Ramsbottom at the LNWR locomotive works at Crewe. He then sailed to New York where he met the Swedish railway-engineer John Ericsson
. He travelled by steamer and train to Niagara Falls and then on to Toronto. The directors of the Canadian narrow-gauge system honoured him with several banquets and with the gift of a silver vase. He was offered a job in Toronto with the Grand Trunk Railway
, but refused despite being offered twice the wages he was earning in Norway; he even insisted that the offer remain confidential so that it was not seen as a means of raising his wages from the Norwegian authorities.
In 1870, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
; and, on 4 May 1880, a member of the United Kingdom's Institute of Civil Engineers.
He married Catherine Ridley, and had 11 children from 1854 to 1875.
When the Hoved Line was built by Robert Stephenson
, he built the line to British standards with the standard gauge
and overdimensioned bridges and curves; this line was very expensive and Pihl felt that it would be possible to build cheaper lines if a narrow gauge
was chosen instead. After studying foreign designs, C. W. Bergh initially concluded that would be suitable, but Pihl argued for extra width and opted for . Through his influential position in the department he convinced the politicians that all new railways should be built on the narrow gauge—except those that would connect with the Swedish system, where standard gauge had become the norm. During the railway construction boom of the 1870s and 1880s all but the Kongsvinger Line, the Meråker Line and the Østfold Line were built to the narrow gauge, leaving Norway with two incompatible systems.
At the time it was not considered probable that the railway system would become connected, but by the turn of the century large-scale projects like the Bergen Line and the Sørland Line were connecting all the isolated railways; transshipment
costs were becoming a drain on resources for the railways and all narrow gauge lines were either closed or converted between 1909 and 1949, at a cost many times larger than the initial savings of building them narrow. During the 1880s the issue of gauge reappeared, with the majority recommending the broader gauge; it was soon shown that standard gauge railways built to the same specifications as the narrow gauge could be constructed at the same cost. Pihl commented in his late years that while he realized that the narrow gauge had become outdated, at the time it had been a choice between building narrow and cheap, or not building at all. The final death of the narrow gauge came the year after Pihl died when parliament decided to build the Bergen Line as standard gauge.
, Queensland
, Canada
, Newfoundland
and New Zealand
opted for the gauge.
and sharper curves to standard gauge lines, although trams which have extremely sharp curves usually have some kind of centre coupling.
Similarly, the cost of a standard gauge line would be reduced by having a smaller loading gauge
with shorter, less tall and narrower vehicles and tunnels of smaller cross-section.
designer of the Fairlie locomotive pioneered on the Festiniog Railway was also an advocate of narrow gauge.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and director of the Norwegian State Railways (NSB) from 1865 until his death. Pihl was one of the main architects of the use of narrow gauge railways in Norway.
Biography
The son of Thomas Bugge Pihl and Fredrikke Wivicke Margrethe Løvold, he started off as a seamanSeaman
Seaman is one of the lowest ranks in a Navy. In the Commonwealth it is the lowest rank in the Navy, followed by Able Seaman and Leading Seaman, and followed by the Petty Officer ranks....
, but soon chose to attend Chalmers University of Technology
Chalmers University of Technology
Chalmers University of Technology , is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that focuses on research and education in technology, natural science and architecture.-History:...
in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
(1841–1844). He then went to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and worked as an office engineer; working on many cases related to railways, including many of those by 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...
. After two years he started field work, with a management position at a site in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
until 1850. While working in England he also learned the art of photography. His collections remain a unique collection of Norwegian railway heritage, dating back to 1862.
Pihl returned to Norway in 1850, and started working for the road office at the Norwegian Ministry of the Interior
Norwegian Ministry of Labour
The Norwegian Ministry of Labour was a Norwegian ministry which was established on 1 September 1885 and was disestablished on 22 February 1946...
, but by 1851 he was hired as an engineer on Norway's first railway, the Hoved Line, where he worked on the section from Christiania
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
to Lillestrøm. After completion of the line in 1854 he moved back to England for a year, but returned to work on the Telemark Canal
Telemark canal
The Telemark Canal connects Skien to Dalen in southern Norway by linking up several long lakes using a series of 18 locks. It originally consisted of two canals: The Norsjø-Skien Canal, with locks in Skien and Løveid was built in the period 1854–1861, and is the oldest of the two canals.The...
, and later as county engineer in Akershus
Akershus
- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...
. In 1855, Pihl proposed building pumping station
Pumping station
Pumping stations are facilities including pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastructure systems, such as the supply of water to canals, the drainage of low-lying land, and the removal of sewage to processing sites.A pumping station...
s and gasworks
Gasworks
A gasworks or gas house is a factory for the manufacture of gas. The use of natural gas has made many redundant in the developed world, however they are often still used for storage.- Early gasworks :...
in Skien
Skien
' is a city and municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Skien. Skien is also the administrative centre of Telemark county....
. Since he was the most prominent railway engineer in Norway at the time, he was hired in 1856 to work on the projects for several of the early railways in Norway, the first being the Kongsvinger Line, the Hamar–Grundset Line and the Trondhjem–Støren Line. In 1858 the office of Statens Jernbaneanlægs hovedkontor was created to manage the state railways, and Pihl was hired as director.
After the reorganization of the railways in 1865, Pihl was appointed the first director-general of the state railways. When this was transformed to the Norwegian State Railways in 1883, Pihl was appointed director of the fixed-stock division—a position he held until his death. During his last fourteen years he was considerably less influential than previously, but he remained the highest-paid civil servant in Norway at the time. In recognition of his technical assistance, the managements of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway
Toronto and Nipissing Railway
The Toronto and Nipissing Railway was chartered in 1868 to build a narrow gauge railway in Ontario, Canada from Toronto to Lake Nipissing, via York, Ontario, and Victoria Counties. It opened in 1871, with service between Scarborough and Uxbridge. By December 1872 it was extended to Coboconk...
offered to pay Pihl's passage to Toronto for the opening of their gauge lines in the summer of 1871. Pihl insisted on paying his own way so that he would not be compromised by such a gift. He sailed from Christiana to England where he spent much time as a guest of the 3rd Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland, derived from Sutherland in Scotland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom held by the head of the Leveson-Gower family. It was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford...
, and Sir Henry Whatley Tyler
Henry Whatley Tyler
Sir Henry Whatley Tyler was a British Inspector of Railways, Railway Company director and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1892.-Early life:...
, visiting John Ramsbottom at the LNWR locomotive works at Crewe. He then sailed to New York where he met the Swedish railway-engineer John Ericsson
John Ericsson
John Ericsson was a Swedish-American inventor and mechanical engineer, as was his brother Nils Ericson. He was born at Långbanshyttan in Värmland, Sweden, but primarily came to be active in England and the United States...
. He travelled by steamer and train to Niagara Falls and then on to Toronto. The directors of the Canadian narrow-gauge system honoured him with several banquets and with the gift of a silver vase. He was offered a job in Toronto with the Grand Trunk Railway
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...
, but refused despite being offered twice the wages he was earning in Norway; he even insisted that the offer remain confidential so that it was not seen as a means of raising his wages from the Norwegian authorities.
In 1870, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
; and, on 4 May 1880, a member of the United Kingdom's Institute of Civil Engineers.
He married Catherine Ridley, and had 11 children from 1854 to 1875.
Gauge controversy
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...
, he built the line to British standards with the standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
and overdimensioned bridges and curves; this line was very expensive and Pihl felt that it would be possible to build cheaper lines if a narrow gauge
Narrow gauge
A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...
was chosen instead. After studying foreign designs, C. W. Bergh initially concluded that would be suitable, but Pihl argued for extra width and opted for . Through his influential position in the department he convinced the politicians that all new railways should be built on the narrow gauge—except those that would connect with the Swedish system, where standard gauge had become the norm. During the railway construction boom of the 1870s and 1880s all but the Kongsvinger Line, the Meråker Line and the Østfold Line were built to the narrow gauge, leaving Norway with two incompatible systems.
At the time it was not considered probable that the railway system would become connected, but by the turn of the century large-scale projects like the Bergen Line and the Sørland Line were connecting all the isolated railways; transshipment
Transshipment
Transshipment or Transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, and then from there to yet another destination....
costs were becoming a drain on resources for the railways and all narrow gauge lines were either closed or converted between 1909 and 1949, at a cost many times larger than the initial savings of building them narrow. During the 1880s the issue of gauge reappeared, with the majority recommending the broader gauge; it was soon shown that standard gauge railways built to the same specifications as the narrow gauge could be constructed at the same cost. Pihl commented in his late years that while he realized that the narrow gauge had become outdated, at the time it had been a choice between building narrow and cheap, or not building at all. The final death of the narrow gauge came the year after Pihl died when parliament decided to build the Bergen Line as standard gauge.
Other countries
The narrow gauge developed by Pihl is the only notable rail transport export from Norway; through his international travels he convinced other rural countries to build cheaper narrow gauge systems, and the system soon became one of the major systems in the world—many British colonies and dominions such as South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
opted for the gauge.
"Cape" or "CAP" gauge
The three foot six gauge is often called "Cape" gauge after the Cape of Good Hope which adopted it fairly early on. However Queensland adopted this gauge on a grand scale in 1865, and it has always been called "narrow gauge" in that country. Narrow gauge were adopted in Norway and Queensland about the same same time.Couplings and loading gauge
The trains promoted by Pihl had a centre buffer-coupling more suited to sharp curves than the original twin buffer and chain model developed by Stephenson. No attempt appears to have been made to introduce these couplingsCoupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...
and sharper curves to standard gauge lines, although trams which have extremely sharp curves usually have some kind of centre coupling.
Similarly, the cost of a standard gauge line would be reduced by having a smaller loading gauge
Loading gauge
A loading gauge defines the maximum height and width for railway vehicles and their loads to ensure safe passage through bridges, tunnels and other structures...
with shorter, less tall and narrower vehicles and tunnels of smaller cross-section.
Other narrow gauge pioneers
Robert FairlieRobert Francis Fairlie
Robert Francis Fairlie was a Scottish railway engineer.- Early life :Fairlie was the son of T. Archibald Fairlie and Margaret Fairlie...
designer of the Fairlie locomotive pioneered on the Festiniog Railway was also an advocate of narrow gauge.
Namesake
The barque Carl Pihl, a 726 ton ship, sailed between Norway, Australian and Californian waters. It operated in Australian waters between 1884 and 1889 and carried cargo such as timber and wool.- Newspaper references:
- 1889 (6)
- 1888 (5)
- 1886 (19)
- 1885 (2)
- 1884 (16)