Paulin Talabot, Pioneering railways (1799-1885, Year of Entry: 1819)

Paulin Talabot joined École Polytechnique in 1819 and later became the first in a long line of Polytechnician railway engineers. After graduating from École des Ponts, he started working in administration, and then in 1831 joined the Beaucaire Canal Company. Committed to the political and social movement of Saint-Simonianism, which advanced the philosophy of faith in progress, he built the Alès railway as well as the first railway lines in the southeast of France. After studying the junction between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, he created the Lyon-Mediterranean Railway Company. Talabot then worked to create an amalgamation of two companies, which formed the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean Railway Company, and became its CEO in 1862.