Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway
railway line in Germany
The Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway is a predominantly double-track, electrified main line in the northwest in the German state of Lower Saxony. It runs to the south from the port city of Wilhelmshaven to Oldenburg.
History
The track was a joint project of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg State Railways and the Prussian state railways and was built together with the Oldenburg–Bremen line. It linked the Prussian naval base in Wilhelmshaven (then called Heppens) and opened up the north of the Grand Duchy. It was officially opened on 18 July 1867, but scheduled services started on 3 September 1867.
The responsibility for the route was taken over in 1920 by the Reichsbahndirektion (Deutsche Reichsbahn railway division) of Oldenburg on 1 April 1920 when the Oldenburg State Railways were absorbed into Deutsche Reichsbahn.
Upgrade for the JadeWeserPort
The electrification and duplication of the whole route was classified in the 2003 Federal Transport Routes Plan (Bundesverkehrswegeplan 2003) in the "Priority Needs" category, the highest priority level. In August 2006 the Chairman of the Deutsche Bahn AG, Hartmut Mehdorn, gave a commitment to the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff to electrify and duplicate the entire route by 2010. The estimated costs were estimated at €22m at the time.
In November 2008, the upgrade was included in the federal government's "Workplace Program for Construction and Transport" (Arbeitsplatzprogramm Bauen und Verkehr).
“Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway” enters the record as railway line in Germany. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wilhelmshaven, Oldenburg and railway can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wilhelmshaven, Oldenburg and railway provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q803479. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1920, 2003 and 2006.
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.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway primary sources, Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway archive and Wilhelmshaven research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg railway”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Wilhelmshaven–Oldenburg 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.