George Railgan

George William Railgan

Born 1891 Studied Electrical Engineering at Stellenbosch University and eventually at Oxford . He graduated in 1922 after studying for eight years. Railgans biggest achievement was the invention of the electrified railway.

Early Years

Railgan was born in 1891 in the small countryside town of Lancashire in England. He lived there up to the age of ten when his parents immigrated to South Africa because his mother was accused of witchcraft. After arriving in port Elizabeth Railgans father, Harold, signed up to the British army to fight on the side of the English in the Anglo-Boer war. Harold Railgan was promised that if he fought in the war the charges of witchcraft against his wife would be dropped and he may move back to England as soon as the war was over. After the war ended The Railgan family decided to stay in South Africa after all. Eventually George finished school in 1910 after failing one year.

1910-1929

After School Railgan traveled the world and and often worked as an assistant coordinator in the bridge building industry. Most of his time overseas he spent in America and Europe, particularly Germany ad France. In 1914 Railgan came back to South Africa and did his undergraduate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch. In 1917, after applying for a bursary Railgan got into the university of Oxford where he majored in engineering and also completed his Doctorate degree there.

In 1925 Railgan moved to Sheffield where he worked for the Steel and Rail Company. There he was employed in the Research department aimed at developing cheaper and faster Rail Transport. During the great depression in 1929 the Steel and Rail Company made great losses and was forced to close.

USSR and Death

However soon after wards in 1930 the United Soviet Socialist Republics Rail and Transport Company (Ussratrac) employed Railgan and he moved to Moscow. As most of his research had already been completed he soon developed the prototype for what is today known as the Modern Electrified Railway in 1931. Two years later after finishing his project, Railgan desperately wanted to go back to his country of birth. However the Soviet authorities would not let him go because of rising tensions between England and the Soviet Union. Railgan attempted numerous times to flee the USSR but always failed. On the 9th of November 1936 he was shot dead by a Soviet border guard while attempting to illegally cross the border between the USSR and Turkey.

Referneces

http://en. .org/wiki/Railway_electrification_system
http://en. .org/wiki/http://www.sdera.org/
http://www.keisei.co.jp/keisei/tetudou/keisei_us/top.html

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