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Olten railway station

major hub railway station in Olten in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ29370
Source-derived summary

Olten railway station (German: Bahnhof Olten) is a major hub railway station in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland, at the junction of lines to Zürich, Bern, Basel, Lucerne and Biel. As a result, Olten is a railway town and was also the site of the main workshop of the Swiss Central Railway (German: Schweizerische Centralbahn), which became a major workshop for the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS). It is the southern terminus of the Basel Regional S-Bahn S3 and S9 lines, the northern terminus of the Lucerne S-Bahn S8 line, and the western terminus of the Aargau S-Bahn S26 line.

Although Olten only has 18,000 inhabitants, the station is used each day by about 80,000 passengers and is one of the 10 busiest in Switzerland, busier than even Geneva. It serves 1,100 trains a day, making it one of the busiest in Switzerland.

Services

As a major railway junction, Olten serves numerous through trains. In addition, a number of local services originate at Olten, including a nighttime services (SN11) offered by the Zürcher Verkehrsverbund (ZVV):

EuroCity / InterCity / Intercity Express (ICE): half-hourly service to Spiez. Most northbound trains terminate in Basel; a single EuroCity continues to Hamburg-Altona, another to Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof, and two ICEs continue to Berlin Ostbahnhof. Most southbound trains continue to Interlaken Ost; one train every two hours continues to Brig. Three EuroCity trains continue from Brig to Milano Centrale.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Olten railway station” as major hub railway station in Olten in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Olten, railway and station.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current 235-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1856. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Olten, railway and station providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Olten railway station”, the useful work is to connect “major hub railway station in Olten in the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q29370. Authority coordinates are 47.352, 7.908. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. 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

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Olten railway station”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Olten railway station primary sources, Olten railway station archive and Olten 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

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Olten railway station”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Olten railway station” 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.