Carl Abraham Phil

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Carl Abraham Phil (born 1825, died 1897) was a Norwegian civil engineer and director of the Norwegian State Railways (NSB) from 1865 until his death in 1897. He was educated at Chalmerska Tekniska Institutet in Gothenburg (1841-1844) and worked as a railway engineer in England until he started working with Hovedbanen in Norway between 1850 and 1854. In 1857 he started working for the newly established NSB on the railway from Hamar to Grundset and was appointed director in 1867.^[1]

Phil was a supporter of narrow gauge (1067 mm) railway in Norway, primarily because of the lower costs of construction of the lines. When Norway later had to convert narrow gauge lines to standard gauge (1435 mm) due to compatibility problems, Phil in the late years of his career and after his death received a lot of criticism for the choice to build such lines as Drammenbanen and part of Hovedbanen in narrow gauge.