Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger Celebrates His 80th Birthday
In November 2024, Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger turned 80 years old. Anyone who knows him is well aware that, despite this special birthday, he does not like too much noise being made about his person. On the one hand, this is due to his always modest, humorous and reserved nature, which makes him reluctant to be the centre of attention. On the other hand, it is of course a special form of occupational illness, as Friedrich Krüger is also a man of softer tones in his professional life: he has dedicated his entire career to combating noise and vibration emissions, particularly from railways.
Friedrich Krüger has been an employee of STUVA e. V. since 1979 and has played a key role in the association‘s success story as head of the noise and vibration technology department since 1985. In 1989, he completed his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin with a dissertation on the forecast of vibrations in railway tunnels. This topic has stayed with him to this day and has been the subject of countless research papers and expertises. Krüger is also the author of several specialised books on the subject of noise and vibration. His book “Schall- und Erschütterungsschutz im Schienenverkehr” (Noise and vibration protection in rail transport), which is also recognised internationally as a standard reference, has recently been extensively revised by him and his co-authors and has now been available in its third edition since December last year. His extensive expert knowledge continues to be in great demand worldwide, whether as a representative of the Union Internationale des Transports Publics (UITP/International Association of Public Transport) in the European Commission‘s EU WG 6 “Railway Noise” or in relevant national and international standardisation committees, where he also represents the interests of the Association of German Transport Companies. He was deservedly awarded the Rudolf Martin Certificate of Honour in March 2024 for his decades of work on the DIN/VDI Acoustics, Noise Abatement and Vibration Control Standards Committee (NALS).
Friedrich Krüger may have been retired for 15 years now, but that hasn‘t stopped him from cycling to STUVA several times a week to pursue his life‘s work. However, he is now more selective: for health reasons, he now prefers to leave stressful foreign assignments such as the metro in Singapore, Light Rail Guadalajara in Mexico or the high-speed railway and metro in Taiwan to younger people, and he is also no longer available for so-called “in-situ measurements” on railway lines – which usually involve pulling an all-nighter out in the rain, working with complex measuring instruments. However, he recently held a seminar on noise and vibration protection in rail transport at the Technical Academy Esslingen (TAE). He has been organising these seminars for decades and, of course, the next one is already in preparation. Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger is a man of conviction and a scientist with all his soul. Everyone at the STUVA wishes him all the best for his birthday.
Ad multos annos, dear Mr. Krüger!
