Today, 125 years ago on 23 February 1893, Rudolf Diesel received the patent for the diesel engine in Berlin. What is interesting from a Swiss point of view, is the connection between Rudolf Diesel and Maschinenfabrik Sulzer AG in Winterthur, where the young inventor had already completed two internships.
Railroads
The construction of the Gotthard railway – the southern access route to the Gotthard tunnel
Those who are allowed to make drawings for the Gotthard line here in the open air in 1875 should themselves lucky! The tunnel workers toiled in the often far too stuffy pits in the north and south. The construction company Favre allows this and numerous other
Digitising maps
Folding maps from the nineteenth century are currently being digitised for the Map Collection at ETH Library’s Digitisation Centre. During the preparation work for the digitisation project, I stumbled across a railway map: it consists of sixteen loose sheets that, assembled correctly, depict
100 years of Jungfrau Railway
Tourism and legends on the mountain
Along with the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau region, especially the big three of the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau itself, rank among Switzerland’s most fascinating tourist attractions. Postcards and pictures of these impressive mountains and the villages at their feet have been luring all kinds of visitors for more than a century and contribute towards the idyllic and unspoilt image of Switzerland.
The Rhine ports of Basel around 1920
Approximately 10 per cent of Switzerland’s total volume of foreign trade is currently transacted through the three Rhine ports in the city and region of Basel. Around 30 to 40 percent of mineral oil reaches Switzerland via the Rhine ports (Wikipedia, 2011). The maps,