Emil Huber-Stockar (July 15, 1865 - May 9, 1939) was a Swiss entrepreneur and railway pioneer. He was an instrumental figure in the

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

of the Swiss railway network and worked as lead engineer and consultant for the Swiss Federal Railways.

Life

Huber was born on July 15, 1865 in

Riesbach Riesbach is a district in the Swiss city of Zürich. It is District number 8. History The district comprises the quarters Seefeld, Mühlebach and Weinegg. Riesbach was formerly a municipality of its own, having been incorporated into Zürich i ...

, Switzerland the son of Peter Emil and Anna Marie (née Werdmüller). His father hailed from a wealthy textile manufacturer family. His father was a former chairman of Oerlikon Buehrle and a pioneer of the machinery and

electric industry Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

. He had a prosper upbringing in Zurich District 7. After training as a mechanical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ) and spending some years in America, Huber took over the management of the

Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon was a Swiss engineering company based in the Zürich district of Oerlikon (Zürich), Oerlikon known for the early development of electric locomotives. It was founded in 1876 by the industrialist Peter Emil Huber-Werdmü ...

, founded by his father Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller, near Zurich, Switzerland. He focussed on solving the difficulties of high power, electrically powered mainline railway systems. In 1904, he electrified the Seebach-Wettingen line with high-voltage

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

(15,000 volts) at low

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

(15 Hertz). This experimental operation was successful. The first railway to use this system (standard in several European countries today, but with a frequency of 16.7 Hertz) was the Bern–Lötschberg–Simplon railway. In 1925, Emil Huber-Stockar received an honorary doctorate from the ETHZ for his achievements.

Family

Emil Huber-Stockar was the son of Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller and brother of lawyer and diplomat Max Huber. In 1895, Emil married Marie Helena Stockar, daughter of Hans Julius, a lawyer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huber-Stockar, Emil 1865 births 1939 deaths Swiss electrical engineers