Austria Banknotes 20 Schilling banknote 1967 Carl Ritter von Ghega
National Bank of Austria - Österreichische Nationalbank
Obverse: Portrait of Carl Ritter von Ghega. The engraving on banknote was made from lithograph by Austrian lithographer and painter Josef Kriehuber in 1851. Coat of arms of Austria at lower center.
Reverse: Semmering railway with surrounding mountain scenery.
Austria banknotes - Austria paper money
1967-1970 Issue
Carl Ritter von Ghega
Carl Ritter von Ghega or Karl von Ghega (10 January 1802 – 14 March 1860) was the designer of the Semmering Railway from Gloggnitz to Mürzzuschlag. During his time, he was the most prominent of Austrian railway engineers and architects.
Born in Venice as Carlo Ghega from an Albanian family. His father, Anton Ghega, was an officer in the Austrian navy in the government service. he studied in Padua, where he took the examination for doctor of mathematics at the age of 18. He was attached to the Imperial board of Public Buildings when the railway movement commencing throughout Europe attracted his attention. He began his engineering career with road and hydraulic engineering in Venice. Among other things he contributed to the building of the road over Cortina d'Ampezzo to Toblach. From 1836 to 1840 he was a construction supervisor for the railway track from Brno to Břeclav, the so-called Emperor Ferdinand North Railway. During this time, in 1836 and 37 he studied also the railways in England and other European countries. In 1842, entrusted with the entire planning of the future state railway, he made a study trip to North America.
After his return to the state railway he began with the planning of the railway line to the south, from Mürzzuschlag to Graz and Trieste. The crossing of the Semmering was not believed possible, but as early as 1844 he submitted a plan for the crossing of the Semmering, with locomotives without an extra rail for gear wheels. Before the building was fully decided, he began to enforce the construction of locomotives which could overcome such upward gradients. Construction of the Semmeringbahn was begun in 1848 and completed in 1854. In 1856, the Borovnica viaduct, one of the most imposing railroad bridges of the era, was built upon the plans by von Ghega as part of the Austrian Southern Railway from Vienna to Trieste.
In 1851, Ghega was knighted (Ritter) for his services to the country, and in 1853 he was made chief of planning for the whole railway network of the Austrian Empire.
Carl von Ghega was next assigned to the building of a railway in Transylvania, but he could not see this project to its end because of his death in Vienna from tuberculosis.
Semmering Railway
The Semmering railway, Austria, which started at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the considerable altitude difference that was mastered during its construction. It is still fully functional as a part of the South railway which is operated by the Austrian Federal Railways.
The Semmering railway was constructed between 1848 and 1854 by some 20,000 workers under the project's designer and director Carl von Ghega born in Venice as Carlo Ghega in an Albanian family. The construction features 14 tunnels (among them the 1,431 m vertex tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-story) and over 100 curved stone bridges as well as 11 small iron bridges. The stations and the buildings for the supervisors were often built directly from the waste material produced in the course of tunnel construction.
Across an overall track length of 41 km the Semmering railway overcomes an altitude difference of 460 m; on 60% of its length the gradient is 2.0-2.5% (equivalent to a 1-meter difference in altitude on a 40 m route distance) and 16% exhibit a curvature radius of only 190 m. This was an entirely new technical dimension of railway construction, and new instruments and methods of surveying had to be developed to handle the resulting challenges. Also, new technologies were employed for the Engerth locomotives because the types in general use at this time could not handle the extreme gradients and turning radii.
Even while being built the Semmering railway was perceived as an effort of "landscape gardening", i.e. it attempted a harmonious combination of technology and nature. The unique travel experience which the Semmering railway offered contributed significantly to the original opening of the Semmering region for tourism. Numerous hotels and mansions are witnesses of this epoch. This enormous upswing to the turn of the century and the revaluation of the region as a winter sports area in the first third of the 20th Century were interrupted first by World War I and then by the changed recreational needs of the population. Therefore this unique culture landscape could be preserved with little change. A trip on the Semmering railway, which is in full use 160 years after its building, still impresses the traveller as a special experience by its varied landscape, the typical style of its mansions and the characteristic sequence of viaducts and tunnel constructions.
In 1998 the Semmering railway was added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.