Carl Abraham Pihl
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Carl Abraham Pihl (born January 16 1825 in Stavanger, Norway, died September 14, 1897) in 1865) became Norway's first railroad engineer and director.
Pihl studied engineering at the Chalmers Institute (now Chalmers University of Technology) in Göteborg then went in the 1840s to England. There he gained practical experience with Robert Stephenson and later worked for Peter Bruff on a railroad project in eastern England. In 1850 he returned to Norway and worked with Stephenson on construction of the Hovedbanen from Christiania (today Oslo) to Eidsvoll wihich opened in 1854. After the opening of the line, he returned to England, where he worked on both railroad and harbour projects, especially in Wales. Upon returning to Norway in 1856 during the Crimean War, he become the first managing engineer of Norway's Railway Construction Bureau. In 1883 Pihl became the first Director of the newly formed Norges Statsbaner or Norwegian state railway.