Gerstner, Franz Anton von#

b. Prague (Czech Republic), April 19, 1796, d. Philadelphia (USA), April 12, 1840, expert on railway technology; son of Franz Joseph von Gerstner. Professor at the Vienna Polytechnic School, supervised the construction proposed by his father of the first horse-drawn railway from Gmunden via Linz to Budweis (the first public railway on the European continent) and completed the line Budweis- Kerschbaum (62,2 km) in 1828; went to England in 1829 after differences of opinion with the shareholders, to Russia in 1834 and to the USA in 1838.