Railway companies and operators
The first institution operating on the line between Bremen and Bremerhaven was the state railway of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1866, the Royal Prussian Railway Administration (KPEV) took over. From that institution, a unified German Railway network was formed (Deutsche Reichsbahn, a company as from 1924, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. Successor in 1949 was the German Federal Railways (Deutsche Bundesbahn). Privatization of railways in Germany led to the formation of the present Deutsche Bahn AG shareholding company (DB) on January 1st 1994.
But Bremerhaven is also served by smaller private companies. In September 1992, the Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser GmbH (EVB) took over the line to Stade from the state network. One year later, the same company inaugurated a connection to Hamburg-Neugraben via Buxtehude. With the brand name “Nordseebahn”, EVB began serving the Bremerhaven-Cuxhaven link in December 2003, in collaboration with Deutsche Bahn AG.