Biography

 

A Polytechnicien in 1913, he chose Ponts et Chaussées and began by the widening of Pont de la Concorde (1928-1932), and the building of Pont de la Tournelle and of the Suresnes dam.As chief engineer of Railroads and Buildings in Alsace-Lorraine, he rebuilt and enlarged Mulhouse station.At the same time, he worked as a deputy professor (1933), then full professor (1935) with the bridges and masonry chair at École des Ponts et Chaussées, succeeding Paul Séjourné.In his classes, he showed the necessity of using concrete in the building of arches and the stability conditions of masonry bridges under the influence of various linears.As Deputy Operations Director for the South-East region at the SNCF in Marseille, he was in charge of the first electrification studies on the Paris-Lyon railway line.When the SNCF began the project, in 1938, it was agreed for military reasons to maintain steam propulsion between Paris and Dijon.When the project was resumed, in 1940, military conditions no longer applied, and it was decided to electrify the whole line from Paris to Lyon.Lang is thus the author of a famous so-called “pink” paper, “Electrification of the line from Paris to Lyon - Preliminary report, traffic study, basic fixed and propulsion equipment”, dated October 23, 1940, which demonstrates the advantages of the operation.Because of his Jewish origins, Lang was arrested in December 1941 and deported to Auschwitz, where he died, a victim of the Holocaust.In tribute, his name was given to the Parisian command post for the electrical substations on the PLM line, which was electrified at 1500 V in 1952 and which houses different SNCF departments, including the Regional Operations Centre (CRO) for SNCF Paris-South-East and the Guidance and Regulation Post (PAR) for the South-East high-speed line (LGV).

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