By taking technical courses in night school, he acquired considerable knowledge in mathematics and physics.

In June 1840 he moved to Karlsruhe, Germany, and found employment in the machine works of Emil Kessler.

As construction of the Basel-Olten line began in 1853, the board of directors of the Schweizer Centralbahn Gesellschaft (Swiss Central Rail Association) appointed him chief of the machine works.

He made several official trips to England and Austria, and crawled under a fair number of steam locomotives and into their boilers, "to make the good even better."

After many attempts he discovered that one could negotiate steeper stretches of track by bolting a rack between the rails, which a toothed wheel or cog on the underside of the locomotive could engage.