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St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line

railway line in Switzerland

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ803474 ↗
Source-derived summary

The St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line is a standard gauge railway line between St. Gallen and Winterthur, connecting the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen, Thurgau and Zürich. The 57.1 km (35.5 mi) long line was opened between 1855 and 1856 in four stages by the former St. Gallen-Appenzell Railway (St. Gallisch-Appenzellische Eisenbahn, SGAE) and belongs to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). It is part of the West-East main line in Switzerland.

History

Construction and opening

The Canton of Thurgau initially refused to grant a concession for the line on its territory, as the route would not have favoured Thurgau. The Swiss Northeastern Railway (Die Schweizerische Nordostbahn) operated the competing Winterthur–Romanshorn railway through the Thurgau.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line” as railway line in Switzerland. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1855, 1856—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Gallen, Winterthur and railway can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as railway line in Switzerland. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q803474. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1855 and 1856.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line primary sources, St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line archive and Gallen 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 “St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “St. Gallen–Winterthur railway line” 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.