Borsig, Johann Carl Friedrich August

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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b. 25 June 1804 Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland)

d. 7 July 1854 Berlin, Germany

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German pioneer manufacturer of locomotives and rails.

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Borsig established a small works at Berlin in 1837 that ten years later had expanded sufficiently to employ 1,200 people. In that year it produced sixty-seven locomotives. Borsig copied the long-boiler type then popular in Britain and which had been exported to Germany by British manufacturers: it became the standard goods engine in Germany for many years, and the name Borsig became one of the famous names of locomotive building. In 1847 Borsig established an iron-works near Berlin that from 1851 started to produce good-quality rails; German railways previously had to import these from Britain.

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Further Reading

J.Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.

PJGR