Eugen Langen

Carl Eugen Langen ( born October 9, 1833 in Cologne, † October 2, 1895 at Sindelsdorf (Rheinland) ) was a German entrepreneur, engineer and inventor. Long was instrumental in the development of the gasoline engine and the " monorail ", which was first realized in the form of the Wuppertal monorail.

Life and work

Eugen Langen is the most important son of the sugar manufacturer Johann Jacob Long ( 1794-1869 ). JJ Langen had his own business in 1845 with the takeover of the sugar factory Schleußner & stern. He led the company with his sons, Carl Otto, Gustav and Emil as " J. J. Lange & Söhne ". 1857 Eugen Langen came after an extensive technical training, including at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, for his brother Emil joined the company.

1864 Eugen Langen was to Nikolaus August Otto attention, who worked on the improvement of the invented by Frenchman Etienne Lenoir atmospheric gas engine in his spare time. The technically trained Eugen Langen recognized the potential of Otto's development and they have already established a month after the meeting shared the first engine factory in the world, " N. A. Otto & Cie ".. At the Paris World Exhibition of 1867 received their improved gas engine, the so-called aviation piston engine, the gold medal.

After this first factory went bankrupt, Langen founded in Deutz with borrowing a new company for the construction of gas engines, the Deutz gas engine factory, which later became the Group Klöckner- Humboldt -Deutz ( KHD) came today Deutz AG. Otto's debt of 18,000 thalers took Eugen Langen. To ensure the production, Langen committed the Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Now Otto was able to lead his old idea of a four-stroke engine ready for production.

In 1870, Emil Langen with Piper and his son Valentin Pfeifer & Langen a existing to this day sugar manufacturing company. With his technical knowledge, he invented new methods of production, and sat at the time the most modern production methods a.

Also in the field of rail vehicle construction Langen was successful: he was co-owner and engineer of Cologne wagon factory van der Zypen & Charlier, on whose land in the early 1890s, a test distance of about 100 m length was built. Unlike the later built and still operated trains in Wuppertal and Dresden this hung test vehicle with internal rollers on two mounted within a hollow beam rails. With this background, Long sat on 28 December 1894 its monorail project against competitors through and became the father of the Wuppertal monorail. The technically not actually correct term " monorail " comes from Long himself: " A system of hanging car. I have the thing monorail baptized. '" ( See Article monorail )

Almost simultaneously, he was responsible for the construction of the monorail Dresden. This is in contrast to the 13.3 km long Wuppertal valley section in Dresden a mountain cable car, which is 274 m long. She also runs today. Eugen Langen died on October 2, 1895 at his country estate house Etzweiler at Sindelsdorf from the effects of fish poisoning, which he had contracted at the inauguration ceremony of the Kiel Canal. His final resting place is located in a family grave at the Cologne Melaten Cemetery, Location: HWG between ref and ref E F.

Today in Sindelsdorf and Wuppertal in each school and a street named after Eugen Langen, just as there are in Karlsruhe, Germany, Schwerin and Cologne Eugen Langen one - street. A monument has the city of Cologne put it in 1990, when she immortalized him as a stone figure at the Cologne Council tower, with a piston engine in the hands and a candy - packing case and a sugar loaf at his feet. Was designed the figure of the Cologne sculptor Theo Heier man.