Fink, Albert

Albert Fink, (born Oct. 27, 1827, Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt [Germany]—died April 3, 1897, Ossining, N.Y., U.S.), German-born American railroad engineer and executive who was the first to investigate the economics of railroad operation on a systematic basis. He was also inventor of the Fink truss, used to support bridges and the roofs of buildings.

Educated in Germany, Fink immigrated to the United States in 1849 and began to work as a draftsman for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. He advanced rapidly, soon assuming responsibility for the design and construction of bridges, stations, and shops along a section of the railway. During that period he invented the Fink truss, first used (1852) to support a bridge over the Monongahela River at Fairmont, Va. (now West Virginia), then the longest iron railroad bridge in the United States. In 1857, for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, he constructed a bridge over the Green River in Kentucky, in its day the largest American iron bridge. After the American Civil War (1861–65), in which he played an important role as a railroad executive, he designed and constructed a bridge across the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky., 1 mile (1.6 km) in length, the longest truss bridge built up to that time.

Named vice president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in 1869, Fink began to analyze the costs and rates of his line, issuing five years later “The Fink Report on Costs of Transportation,” the first full investigation of railway economics in the United States. In 1875 he became commissioner of the Southern Railway & Steamship Association in Atlanta, Ga., and spent two years working to stabilize freight rates for 25 competitive railways and to end destructive rate wars. From 1877 he carried out a similar project for railroads serving New York City. Fink retired in 1889.