Knorr-Bremse
Knorr-Bremse
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Knorr-Bremse

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Knorr-Bremse

Knorr-Bremse AG is a German manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles that has operated since 1905. Other products in the company's portfolio include intelligent door systems, control components, air conditioning systems for rail vehicles, torsional vibration dampers, and transmission control systems for commercial vehicles.

The Group has a presence in over 30 countries, at 100 locations. In 2022, the Group's workforce of over 31,000 achieved worldwide sales of EUR 7.15 billion.[self-published source]

The German engineer Georg Knorr established Knorr-Bremse GmbH in 1905 in Boxhagen-Rummelsburg, Neue Bahnhofstraße, outside Berlin (since 1920 part of Berlin-Friedrichshain). From the onset, the company benefitted heavily from Knorr's prior experience working on railway braking systems at, Carpenter & Schulze, a separate company that he owned. Knorr promptly put into production an innovative rapid release brake that could bring passenger trains to a halt faster, more safely and consistently.

In 1911, the company merged with "Continentale Bremsen-GmbH" to found Knorr-Bremse Aktiengesellschaft (AG). From 1913 onwards, a second manufacturing plant, new headquarters, a heating plant and other annex buildings were erected.[citation needed] During 1918, the company introduced the Kunze-Knorr freight train brake; for a time, Knorr-Bremse was the only supplier of these new brakes, not just in Germany and other European countries; the innovation was soon credited with a reduction in the rate of major accidents upon the railway.

An early cornerstone of Knorr's commercial success was provided by an agreement with the Prussian State Railways, which at that time had formed the Prussian-Hessian Railway Company, to supply single-chamber express braking systems, first for passenger and later on for freight trains. The introduction of the "Knorr Druckluft-Einkammerschnellbremse" (K1) compressed-air brake, along with its derivatives, offered considerably enhanced safety performance compared with traditional systems. In the early twentieth century, train guards still had to operate brakes by hand, from so-called "brake vans". The first pneumatic brakes were of a basic design, but before long, indirect automatic systems using control valves were developed. See History of rail transport in Germany for an overview.

In 1920, the manufacturing plant of the first Bayerische Motoren-Werke AG (BMW, established in 1917/1918) located in Munich, Moosacher Straße, became a subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse, delivering brake systems as Süddeutsche Bremsen-AG for the Bavarian Group Administration, the former "Royal Bavarian State Railways". There was no further interest in motor engines for aircraft and automobiles. The engine construction and the company name "BMW" were sold in 1922 to financier Camillo Castiglioni to be combined with the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (BFW, located not far away), establishing the company a second time. For details see History of BMW and BFW/Messerschmitt.

Between 1922 and 1927, the company's new main manufacturing plant in Berlin at the Hirschberger Straße/Schreiberhauer Straße next to the Berlin Ringbahn was erected, a tunnelled road permitted direct access between the old and the new sites.[citation needed]

A second major sector of activity emerged during 1922 when Knorr-Bremse secured a patent for the use of pneumatic braking systems for commercial road vehicles. One year later, the company became the first in Europe to develop a system that applied the brakes simultaneously to all four wheels of a truck as well as its trailer; the resultant reduction in braking distances made a significant contribution to improving road safety. By the end of the 1930s, around 90 percent of all trucks in Germany between 7 and 16 tonnes in weight had been equipped with Knorr-Bremse systems.

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