Tecnomasio was an Italian scientific and precision instrument company founded in the 1860s. By the beginning of the 20th century the company has begun to produce electrical equipment. After financial problems in the early 1900s the company was acquired by

Brown Boveri Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies. It was founded in Baden bei Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlik ...

becoming ''Tecnomasio Italiano Brown Boveri'' commonly known as TIBB; instrument production halted and the company became an industrial electrical equipment producer, one of the major companies in Italy. The company became part of the ABB group as ABB Tecnomasio in 1988 after the merger of its parent. The plant in

Vado Ligure Vado Ligure (), in antiquity Vada Sabatia, is a port town and ''comune'' in the province of Savona, Liguria, in northern Italy. The town despite its size has become one of the largest ports in Northwest Italy. Economy Vado has a large indus ...

became part of

Adtranz Adtranz was a multi-national rail transportation equipment manufacturer with facilities concentrated in Europe and the US. The company, legally known as ABB Daimler-Benz Transportation, was created in 1996 as a joint venture between ABB and Daim ...

and later part of Bombardier's transportation group.

History

The origins of Tecnomasio go back as far as 1863 when mechanical and civil engineer Luigi Longoni, instrument maker Carlo Dell'Acqua, and optical scientist

Ignazio Porro Ignazio Porro (25 November 1801 – 8 October 1875) was an Italian inventor of optical instruments. Porro's name is most closely associated with the prism system which he invented around 1850 and which is used in the construction of Porro prism ...

founded a company in Milan. Porro left the company in 1864 to be replaced by photographer Alessandro Duroni forming the company Duroni, Longoni, Dell'Acqua. Alessandro gave up his stake in 1866 and Dell'Acqua in 1868 making Longoni the sole owner. In 1870 Bartolomeo Cabella joined the company. Longoni died in 1871, and Cabella became the director of the company. Initially the company produced scientific apparatus, including microscopes,

heliostat A heliostat () is a device that reflects sunlight toward a target, turning to compensate for the Sun's apparent motion. The reflector is usually a plane mirror. The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a direct ...

cathetometer A cathetometer is an instrument for measuring vertical distances in cases where a scale cannot be placed very close to the points whose distance apart is desired. The instrument consists essentially of an accurately graduated scale and a horizon ...

theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building and ...

s and arc lamps. Cabella took over the company in 1878 and the name became ''Ing. B. Cabella e C.'' Under Cabella's management the company attempted to expand its product range from precision instrument to one including industrial electromechanical devices such as alternators and dynamos; the company was converted to a limited company in 1898 as Società Anonima Tecnomasio Italiano ing. B. Cabella e C. By 1903 the company was in a financial crisis, Cabella was dismissed from the company, and

of Switzerland took a 50% stake in the company, forming Tecnomasio Italiano Brown Boveri (TIBB). The company ended its production of instruments and became a manufacturer of industrial equipment. The milanese electromechanical company Gadda e C. was also acquired by Brown and Boveri in 1908 and the Westinghouse factory in

was acquired in 1921. During the next two decades the factories in Milan played a major role in supplying electrical generators and transformers for Italian hydroelectric plant. The company also became involved in railway electrification, electrifying the line from

Bolzano Bolzano ( ; ; or ) is the capital city of South Tyrol (officially the province of Bolzano), Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The ...

to Brenner founding the company Sae.* During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the factories were badly damaged by bombing, afterwards production of locomotives and large-scale electrical generators began again, along with the start of production of

white goods A major appliance is a non-portable or semi-portable machine used for routine housekeeping tasks such as cooking, washing laundry, or food preservation. Such appliances are sometimes collectively known as white goods, as the products were tradi ...

. In 1988 the company became part of the

ABB Group ABB Group is a Swedish-Swiss multinational electrical engineering corporation. Incorporated in Switzerland as ABB Ltd., and headquartered in Zurich, it is dual-listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm, Sweden, and the SIX Swiss Exch ...

after the merger of its parent

with

ASEA ''Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget'' ( English translation: General Swedish Electrical Limited Company; Swedish abbreviation: ASEA) was a Swedish industrial company. History ASEA was founded in 1883 by Ludvig Fredholm in Västerås ...

, later it would become part of

, and after

became fully owned by

DaimlerChrysler Mercedes-Benz Group AG (formerly Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler, and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive company headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacturers. Daimler-B ...

the name of Italian sub division became Daimler Chrysler Rail System (Italia) SpA. As of 2010 the Vado Ligure plant is part of Bombardier Transportation Italy S.p.A. and manufactures locomotives.

Products and projects

Electricity generation and transmission

Locomotives

In 1911 TIBB supplied the FS Class E.320 electric locomotives for the Italian Railways, whilst the Westinghouse plant in Vado Ligure manufactured the FS Class E.550 between 1908 and 1920. After the state railways decided on 3 kV DC electrification prototypes of class

FS Class E.625 FS, fS or fs may refer to: Arts and entertainment * FS (musician) (real name Fred Sargolini), American dubstep producer and DJ from New York * FS Catalogue, a numbered list of all compositions by Carl Nielsen * FS Film, a Finnish film distributo ...

were produced in Vado Ligure. Post WWII the FS Class E.424 (1940s) and then

FS Class E.636 The Ferrovie dello Stato, FS E.636 is a class of Italy, Italian articulated electric locomotives. They were introduced in the course of the 1940s until the 1960s, and have been decommissioned since 2006. They have been one of the most numerous It ...

(1950s) followed by the FS Class E.646 during the 1960s all of which were successful designs. During the 1960s and 1970s the FS Class E.444 and

FS Class E.656 The Class E.656 is an Italian Articulated locomotive, articulated rheostatic-type electric locomotive built from 1975 to 1989. An evolution of the FS Class E.646, E.646, they are mixed traffic locomotives, and have been used on every kind of tra ...

were produced, by the 1980s electronic chopper control began to be used, first in the FS Class E.632. By the 1990s the company had taken part in the consortium producing the

ETR 500 ETR 500 ('' Elettro Treno Rapido 500'') is a family of Italian high-speed trains built by AnsaldoBreda and introduced in 1993. Designed under the aegis of the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), it is now operated by Trenitalia on RFI tracks. From 2018 ...

high speed trains. From the 1990s, locomotive production switched to ABB-developed

inverter A power inverter, inverter, or invertor is a power electronic device or circuitry that changes direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The resulting AC frequency obtained depends on the particular device employed. Inverters do the op ...

-controlled

AC induction motor An induction motor or asynchronous motor is an AC electric motor in which the electric current in the rotor that produces torque is obtained by electromagnetic induction from the magnetic field of the stator winding. An induction motor theref ...

technology, first introduced in the multivoltage electric locomotives of the FS Class E.412, already delivered as part of the Adtranz group. The

FS Class E.464 The E.464 is a class of Italian railways electric locomotives. They were introduced in the course of the 1990s for hauling light trains, especially for commuter service. They were acquired by FS Trenitalia to replace the old E.424 and E.646, ...

, a single-cabin electric locomotive manufactured at Vado Ligure from 1996 onwards would become one of the most numerous Italian locomotives ever with over 600 units ordered; production continued under Bombardier's ownership.

References

* *

History

Products and projects

Electricity generation and transmission

Locomotives

See also

References

Further reading