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Hanover–Hamburg railway

railway line

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 30, 2023
Entity authorityQ240059 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Hanover–Hamburg railway is one of the most important railway lines in Lower Saxony and Germany. It links the Lower Saxon state capital of Hanover with Hamburg, running through Celle, Uelzen and Lüneburg.

History

The main section of the route, the line from Celle to Harburg, was opened on 1 May 1847 by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways. It formed a junction with the so-called Kreuzbahn from Lehrte, then the most important railway hub in the Hanover region, to Celle. The Hanover–Lehrte–Celle railway had been opened as early as 15 October 1845. The Celle–Harburg section opened up the northeastern part of the Kingdom of Hanover. At that time Harburg was still Hanover's rival to the port of Hamburg; there was still no link across the Elbe.

In 1864 the line finally reached Hamburg with a detour over the Lauenburg–Hohnstorf ferry and the railway bridge over the Elbe from Harburg to Hamburg was rapidly completely following the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1872. By 1906 the line was open to the Hanoverian station, known today as Hamburg Hauptbahnhof.

Junctions with other lines were formed including the America Line, the Aller Valley Railway from Gifhorn via Celle and Schwarmstedt to Verden (Aller), the Wendland Railway, the Braunschweig–Uelzen railway, several predecessors of the East Hanoverian Railways as well as the Celle–Brunswick, Lüneburg–Buchholz in der Nordheide, Lübeck–Lüneburg and Uelzen–Dannenberg railways.

Editorial summary

“Hanover–Hamburg railway” enters the record as railway line. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hanover, Hamburg and railway can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1847, 1845, 1864, 1872—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hanover, Hamburg and railway.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hanover–Hamburg railway” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hanover, Hamburg and railway provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q240059. The first chronological checks are 1847, 1845, 1864 and 1872.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hanover–Hamburg railway”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hanover–Hamburg railway primary sources, Hanover–Hamburg railway archive and Hanover research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hanover–Hamburg railway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.