Werner Teich
Three-phase drive for locomotives 1970
It took many innovations to be able to use the railroad as an environmentally friendly means of transportation today.
In the second half of the 19th century, locomotives were still powered by steam and streetcars were pulled by horses. It was not until Werner von Siemens presented the "dynamo-electric principle" at the Berlin Academy of Sciences on January 17, 1867 that electricity could be generated. In a generator, the residual magnetic field of iron cores initially generates a low voltage and a low current, which can be used to strengthen the magnetic field, which can now generate ever higher voltages. The electric motor soon began to be used in transportation, with the first electromechanical energy converters being direct current machines.
Werner von Siemens presents the world's first electric locomotive at the Berlin Trade Exhibition on May 31, 1879. The locomotive receives direct current with a voltage of 150 volts via the two running rails. The small locomotive achieves an output of 2.2 kilowatts and pulls three open carriages, each carrying six people, on a 300-meter circuit through the exhibition grounds at a speed of around seven kilometers per hour.
The first electric streetcar began operating in Berlin in May 1881. However, because the locomotive was supplied with electricity via the rails, this repeatedly led to operational disruptions and even fatal accidents. With the current collector developed by engineer Walter Reichel at Siemens & Halske in 1889, the current can be safely transmitted from a cable mounted above the rails. The rails now serve as a return line and are earthed.
However, direct current reached its limits over longer distances due to its relatively low voltage at the time. In the search for a more suitable traction current system, single-phase alternating current and the three-phase alternating current consisting of three separate alternating currents, known as "three-phase current", were developed. Alternating current is comparatively easy to transform to high voltages.
On August 25, 1891, the first high-voltage three-phase electrical power was transmitted on the line from Lauffen to Frankfurt through the Odenwald. And as early as 1895, Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri began testing the first three-phase locomotives in Ticino at Brown, Boveri & Cie. which they founded in 1891. In 1899, the first locomotive powered by three-phase current went into operation on the 41-kilometer line from Burgdorf to Thun. From then on, three-phase current with a fixed voltage and frequency can be used to power rail vehicles. In 1903, a Siemens three-phase railcar with two three-pole pantographs reaches the sensational speed of 209 km.
However, with the first single-phase alternating current locomotive LAG 1, which went into operation in 1905 on the 23 km long line from Murnau to Oberammergau, single-phase alternating current became established. A step transformer varies the voltage to be supplied to the traction motor and thus regulates tractive power and speed.However, this technology requires the construction of separate locomotives for heavy freight trains or fast passenger trains.
It would be decades before the goal of converting the supplied electrical energy in the locomotive itself and regulating the motor power directly by means of variable voltage and variable frequency could be achieved. Even in the early 1950s, the desire for a universally deployable locomotive could not yet be fulfilled and Deutsche Bahn still had to use both express locomotives (E10) and freight locomotives (E40/E50).
In the 1970s, BBC enriches railroad history with a significant innovation. A team led by Werner Teich in Mannheim takes on the development of a universal locomotive.
Werner Teich was born on December 16, 1932 in the small town of Jurgaitschen near Tilsit in East Prussia. His father was an agricultural worker and his mother a tailor. Shortly after his birth, his father dies of tuberculosis and his mother has to raise Werner and his older brother Karl Heinz alone.
Even before the Red Army's assault on East Prussia begins in January 1945, triggering a horrific mass exodus that kills countless people, the small family leaves their home and reaches Annaberg in the Erzgebirge mountains, almost 900 km away. From there, they continue on to Hagenow in Mecklenburg.
Werner is now able to attend school again. After an apprenticeship in electrical engineering, he began studying mechanical and electrical engineering in Dresden in 1951. He then worked as a group leader at the Reichsbahn from 1954 to 1956.
After an altercation with the SED party secretary of the Hagenow railroad depot, he flees the GDR for West Berlin on a Reichsbahn steam locomotive that very night. On September 30, 1956, he flies to Frankfurt and starts work the very next day at BBC in Mannheim-Käfertal as a development and project engineer for railroad vehicle control systems.
After Siemens & Halske succeeded in producing high-purity silicon in 1954, versatile semiconductors became available for power electronics, opening up new possibilities for economical electrical power transmission in the construction of diesel locomotives.
In the mid-1960s, Teich, now promoted to head of department, begins to develop a modern three-phase drive for locomotives with his team. As this task was not an official research project of the company, he first had to do a lot of persuading to secure the necessary funds.
The aim is to use a diesel engine in the vehicle itself to generate the power required to supply the three-phase motor and to use a frequency converter to adjust the frequency and voltage of the current so that the speed of the motor can be controlled precisely and continuously. This also has the advantage that the motor only runs at the speed actually required, thus saving energy. The soft start and stop also reduces mechanical loads and extends the service life of the motor.
In June 1969, BBC presents the use of frequency converters in diesel locomotives and electric traction units in Mannheim.
Initial experience with three-phase AC drive technology is gained during trials with three DE 2500 series diesel locomotives built by Henschel in Kassel and electrically equipped by BBC in Mannheim. The locomotives have three-phase asynchronous traction motors, which are powered by a three-phase generator driven by a diesel engine. The locomotive with the white livery is jokingly christened the "White Giant" by the railwaymen in reference to a popular detergent of the time and the blue locomotive the "Blue Goat", probably after a popular television program of the time. And there is also a "Red Ox". All three locomotives have been preserved. The "Blauer Bock" can be admired today in Mannheim's Technoseum.
As early as 1971, the world's first locomotive with the completely new electrical equipment is presented at the Hanover Fair and then thoroughly tested.
The next stage of development involved investigating whether the electricity could be taken directly from the overhead line instead of generating it on board with a diesel engine and generator. To this end, the "White Giant Locomotive" will be converted for electric operation. To do this, the diesel engine is removed and a control car equipped with a current collector, transformer and the necessary measuring equipment is connected to the locomotive, simulating a three-phase electric locomotive. The converter developed by Teich and his team converts the current from the contact wire in the locomotive into three-phase current, the three phases of which are offset by 120 degrees to each other to ensure constant and even energy transmission.
The trials with the trailer, which began in 1974, not only showed the fundamental suitability of the new technology, but also that it could be used to reduce maintenance costs and downtimes.
The first three-phase motor with a continuous output of 1.4 megawatts meets all expectations on the test bench at BBC in 1976. Despite its high performance, it is small, low-maintenance and lightweight, which reduces the overall weight of the bogies and significantly reduces wear on the track and points. In addition, the three-phase motor facilitates starting under high loads in freight train traffic, which prevents the drive wheels from spinning.
In May 1979, the first locomotive with three-phase AC drive technology was delivered to the Deutsche Bundesbahn. It is initially approved for a maximum speed of 160 km/h and from 1980 for 200 km/h. During electric braking, it can feed energy back into the overhead line. It is regarded as the world's first serially built three-phase locomotive in the high-performance range and is the first universal locomotive that can move both fast ICEs and heavy freight trains. This means that the long-standing wish to be able to use one and the same locomotive for all trains has finally been fulfilled. It represents a milestone in the development of electric locomotives. The successful locomotives are soon also sold to the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Norway.
In the mid-1980s, the three-phase AC drive enabled the development of the ICE power cars and is now standard for all electrically powered rail vehicles worldwide.
In 1982, Werner Teich, together with his engineering colleagues Jörg Brenneisen, Ehrhard Futterlieb, Joachim Körber, Edmund Müller, G. Reiner Nill, Manfred Schulz and Herbert Stemmler, is presented with the Elmer A. Sperry Award in Baltimore, USA. They are the first foreigners to receive the prize, which has been awarded since 1955, for a significant engineering achievement in transportation.
Even after Werner Teich (18) retires as Marketing Director of BBC's Transport division, his expertise remains in demand. He is also involved in Großsachsen, where he has found a home, and dedicates the book "Liebe zu Großsachsen" to the town.
On August 11, 2000, Mayor Werner Oehldorf presents him with the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon at a ceremony.
After a long illness, Werner Teich dies on December 26, 2010, just a few days after his 78th birthday.
