Page - 113 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

113 The rail rolling mill was at the cutting edge of technology, headed by Joseph Hall, an English engineer trained by locomotive pioneer George Stephenson. In 1856 the Bessemer process was introduced to increase production. The Southern Railway was the first Austrian railway to run on Bessemer rails; and 1870/1871 saw the ignition of the first Siemens-Martin open hearth furnace not only in Graz, but in the whole country. The Andritzer Maschinenfabrik company, founded by the Hungarian iron entrepreneur Josef Körösi in 1852, became the first establishment in Styria to produce steam engines on a large scale. As early as 1857, ‘Andritz’ sup- plied larger steam hammers and steam engines for the entire metallurgical facilities of the new plant in Eibiswald and for the generously proportioned plant in Pichling. It should be mentioned in particular that the 11,000 HP triple-roller traction unit produced in Andritz for Donawitz was one of the heaviest machines on the soil of the Danube Monarchy. ‘Andritz’ achieved a leading position in centrifugal pump construction, further developed crane construction and manufactured 347 water turbines up to the outbreak of the First World War. Fig.: Advertisement for the Puntigam brewery from 1906 (Adressbuch der Stadt Graz, 1906).