Franz Xaver Riepl

Franz Xaver Riepl (29 November 1790 – 25 April 1857) was a geologist, railway pioneer and metallurgical specialist from the Austrian Empire.

From 1816 he was employed at the Fürstenberg iron mines in Nižbor (Nischburg), Bohemia and undertook extended study tours through Saxony, Bavaria, Prussian Silesia, and Moravia.

He also assisted the Austrian State Chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich establishing iron works on his estates in Plasy, Bohemia.

In 1830 he presented detailed route diagrams of a railway line running from Vienna to the Witkowitz iron works and further eastwards to the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Kraków.

Receiving large funds by Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, his plans were finalised: backed by Chancellor Metternich and the Bohemian "stadtholder" Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, Riepl and Rothschild received the commission for the building of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway line (Nordbahn) from Vienna to Bochnia.