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 Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1 ...
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 ( lij, Voæ), in antiquity Vada Sabatia, is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Savona, Liguria, in northern Italy.
Economy
Vado has a large industrial and commercial port.
Vado Ligure is home to a railway construction plant, ...
became part of
Adtranz 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 (from ''helios'', the Greek word for ''sun'', and ''stat'', as in stationary) is a device that includes a mirror, usually a plane mirror, which turns so as to keep reflecting sunlight toward a predetermined target, compensating f ...
s,
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 ...
s,
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
Brown Boveri
Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies.
It was founded in Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1 ...
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
Vado Ligure
Vado Ligure ( lij, Voæ), in antiquity Vada Sabatia, is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Savona, Liguria, in northern Italy.
Economy
Vado has a large industrial and commercial port.
Vado Ligure is home to a railway construction plant, ...
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 ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third ...
to
Brenner founding the company Sae.
[*]
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
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, also known as a large domestic appliance or large electric appliance or simply a large appliance, large domestic, or large electric, is a non-portable or semi-portable machine used for routine housekeeping tasks such as cooki ...
.
In 1988 the company became part of the
ABB Group
ABB Ltd. is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to create ...
after the merger of its parent
Brown Boveri
Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies.
It was founded in Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1 ...
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 as ...
, later it would become part of
Adtranz, and after
Adtranz became fully owned by
DaimlerChrysler
The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufactur ...
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
The FS Class E.550 was a class of three-phase electric locomotive used in Italy, introduced in the 20th century, which remained in service until 1965.
History
In the wake of the success met by three-phase electric locomotives on the Valtellina ...
between 1908 and 1920. After the state railways decided on 3 kV DC electrification prototypes of class
FS Class E.625 were produced in Vado Ligure.
Post WWII the
FS Class E.424 (1940s) and then
FS Class E.636 (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 rheostatic-type electric locomotive built from 1975 to 1989. An evolution of the E.646, they are mixed traffic locomotives, and have been used on every kind of train, ranging from freight to intercity ...
were produced, by the 1980s electronic chopper control began to be used, first in the
FS Class E.632
The FS E.632 and E.633 are two classes of Italian railways electric locomotives. They were introduced in the course of the 1980s.
The locomotives are nicknamed ''Tigre'' ("tiger").
History
The E.632/E.633 were the first Italian locomotives to ...
. 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.
History
...
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 oppo ...
-controlled
AC induction motor
An induction motor or asynchronous motor is an AC electric motor in which the electric current in the rotor needed to produce torque is obtained by electromagnetic induction from the magnetic field of the stator winding. An induction motor c ...
technology, first introduced in the multivoltage electric locomotives of the
FS Class E.412
The E.412 class (factory name 112E) is a batch of multi-role electric locomotives built for the mountain lines, particularly for the northern Italian lines of the Brenner pass. They are known as ''Brenner'' or ''Brennerlok'' locomotives. 28 uni ...
, 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.
See also
*
List of Italian companies
Italy is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe with the third largest nominal GDP in the Eurozone and the eighth largest in the world. As an advanced economy the country also has the sixth worldwide national wealth and it is ranked third ...
*
Lodi T.I.B.B. (Milan Metro)
Lodi T.I.B.B. is a station in Milan, Italy on Line 3 of the Milan Metro. The station is located at Piazzale Lodi and is partially named after the company Tecnomasio Italiano Brown Boveri
Tecnomasio was an Italian scientific and precision instr ...
, station in Milan named after TIBB
References
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Further reading
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{{Authority control
Manufacturing companies established in 1863
Italian companies established in 1863
Engineering companies of Italy
Locomotive manufacturers of Italy
Bombardier Transportation