150 Years of Siemens
Transforming the everyday for 150 years Celebrating its 150th year of operations in Australia in 2022, transport solutions provider Siemens Mobility remains firmly committed to the country’s economic and technological growth. Global technology company Siemens owes its formation to the genius of its founder, Werner von Siemens. The German electrical engineer and industrialist laid the foundation for today’s Siemens AG (Siemens Aktiengesellschaft in full) in 1847, with his design for the pointer telegraph. The 30-year-old inventor hit upon an idea for substantially improving the electric telegraph developed by Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke. Together with precision mechanic Johann Georg Halske, he established the telegraph construction company TelegraphenBauanstalt von Siemens & Halske to manufacture his new device. In 1848, the young company won a contract to build Europe’s first long-distance telegraph line. Extending largely underground from Berlin to Frankfurt, the roughly 670 kilometre link went into operation in February 1849. In 1868, having formed the company Siemens & Halske with brothers Carl Wilhelm and Carl Heinrich, he embarked on a capital-intensive project that was both technologically and logistically demanding: the construction of a telegraph link between Europe and India. Building of the line, which was
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commissioned by the Indo-European Telegraph Company, began on Russian territory and took place in three phases stretching from the Prussian-Russian border to Tehran. After only two years of construction, it put the “Indoline” into operation in April, 1870. Instead of 30 days, it now took only 28 minutes to transmit messages from London to Calcutta – a sensation at the time. The successful implementation of this major project earned Siemens & Halske international acclaim and marked a high point in the company’s business activities. von Siemens is also renowned for discovering the dynamo-electric principle, and constructed the dynamo machine, the forerunner of modern, large-scale electric generators, in 1866. Recognising the economic significance of his invention, his company quickly took out patents to ensure his right to commercialise it. After roughly 10 years of development and testing, the dynamo was ready for series production in 1875. Its launch marked the start of a new era in the history of electrical engineering. The ability to generate and distribute large amounts of electrical energy at low cost gave a major boost to the economy.
In 1879, von Siemens presented the first electric railway, powered by electricity supplied via the rails. This was a significant breakthrough, as previously, engineers and designers had been trying to adapt electric motors for transportation. von Siemens immediately recognised railways’ potential for mass transportation, and two years later, in 1881, the company produced – at its own expense – the world’s first tramway, which went into operation in Berlin. The self-propelled cars had a size and features similar to their horse-drawn predecessors, with electric power provided by a DC dynamo machine of the kind normally used to generate power for lighting systems. The wheels served as the power pickups, because the current ran through the rails. This first tramway was a milestone in transportation technology, and began the triumphant development of electric railways – whether trams, subways or high-speed intercity rail. From these humble yet impressive beginnings, the Siemens name has grown to be a global trademark, with the company now a giant shaping the mobility and technological evolution of countries across the world, including, of course, the Pacific region.
