Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg

Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg (12 May 1817 – 2 February 1886) was a German mechanical engineer and railway engineer.

Edmund Heusinger was born in Langenschwalbach (present day Bad Schwalbach) in the state of Hesse in central Germany on 12 May 1817. In 1841 he became a master-workman with the Taunus Railway (Taunusbahn). In 1854 he was awarded a contract to build the Homburg Railway. He invented inter alia a new type of valve gear for steam locomotives that was to become the most widely used valve gear in the world. Because the Belgian, Egide Walschaerts, invented the same system independently, it is usually called the Walschaerts valve gear outside the German-speaking world.

Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg died on 2 February 1886 in Hanover, in northern Germany.

Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg, was a mechanical engineer who became famous as a result of his inventions. After studying at University of Göttingen and Leipzig University, he entered the smelting house of “Good Hope", under English management, in 1840, where the first locomotive in Germany was being built. After a short time, he became foreman of the workshop of the Taunus Railway Company in Castel. In 1844 he became overseer in the shops in Frankfurt am Main, and two years later, he was made superintendent of the General Shops in Castel.

After acquiring, by diligent studies, the knowledge of a railway builder, he was given in 1854 the project of building the line between Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. In 1863, when he made the plans for the Deister and South Harz Railway, which was constructed shortly thereafter, he moved to Hanover, where he lived to the end of his strenuous but successful life.

...
Wikipedia