Bela Gerster
Other - other
* Košice, October 20, 1850 – † Budapest, August 3, 1923 / hydraulic engineer ; ; younger brother of Árpád Géza Gerster. He completed his secondary schooling in Košice and the Technical University in Vienna, where he was a city engineer from 1874. He then participated in the enterprises of his brother-in-law, István Kauser, in Budapest. From 1877, he worked as chief engineer on the construction of the Ferenc Canal, designing the route of the Vukovar-Samac and Upper Kulpa navigation canals. He gained considerable fame as a member of the international expedition sent to lay out the route of the Panama Canal. Therefore, at the suggestion of István Türr, he was involved in the design of the Corinth Canal. The construction work began in 1882, with the cutting of the hoe by the Greek king. The works were led by Béla Gerster as chief engineer of the canal construction company. Four other Hungarian engineers participated in the construction of the canal: István Kauser, László Nyári, Garibaldi Pulszky and István Stéghmüller. During the work, Gerster used the so-called English cutting system, which was considered the most modern at the time, and with about four thousand construction workers, he began cutting through the 80-meter-high isthmus. The length of the canal is 6,345 meters, its depth is 8.5, and its width is 25 meters. Two harbors and a bridge for the Peloponnese railway were also built at the same time. The canal was completed in August 1893. He reported on the construction work in detail in his book The Isthmus of Corinth and Its Crossing (1894), which was first published in Hungarian and then in a French book published in Budapest in 1896. This publication also contains photographs, engineering drawings and precise maps. The international trade press of the time also covered his activities in great detail and with great recognition. He participated in the development of Türr's large-scale domestic water management plans. Later, he mainly dealt with railway construction, supervising the design and construction of thirteen railway lines. In 1919, he headed the construction directorate of the Danube-Tisza Canal.