Vaiņode station Infrastructure

The railway station building was opened with the construction of the Liepāja-Vainode railway line in 1871. The station building itself was opened in 1872. This was also the beginning of a great activity in the development of the central streets of Vaiņode. It is significant that in the guidebooks of the time, the distance of each building or object was indicated as the distance from the railway station. The railway station was once an important military transport hub. 

During the First World War, a branch line was built from the station to the airfield, which brought materials (metal shapes for hangars), cranes, winches and ammunition for war stores, which were then transported by zeppelins to Riga and bombed the Russian fortifications.

The railway station building was not affected by the devastation of World War II and has not changed its appearance over time. Vaiņode station can be seen from the outside.

The military activity in the vicinity of Vaiņode can be traced back to the successful Red Army offensive that began on 5 October 1944 in the vicinity of Šiauliai. Quickly crushing the weak German resistance, Soviet tank units were tasked with seizing the strategically important Liepāja-Shaul railway line. In the early hours of 9 October 1944, the first units of the 79th Tank Brigade of the 19th Panzer Corps and the separate units of the 143rd Tank Brigade launched an offensive. As a result of the collapse of the German front, only small units of the German 61st Infantry Division, supported by armoured trains, were present in the eastern outskirts of Vaiņode. The resistance was quickly overcome and by the evening of 9 October the whole of Vaiņode was under the complete control of the Red Army. On 10 October, units of the 103rd Rifle Corps of the Soviet 6th Guards Army arrived and continued their attacks, pushing back the German 61st Infantry Division 2 km north of the Skaistkalne sanatorium. As the Soviet forces took Vaiņode with little fighting, the Vaiņode station and the town's buildings suffered relatively little.

The fighting got a little closer to Vaiņode on 24 October 1944, when the German 10th Corps, with the 14th Panzer Division in the lead, carried out an offensive operation nicknamed "Eberhard". During the fighting, the front line consolidated just north of the sanatorium and remained there until 27 October, when the Red Army launched an offensive known as the 1st Kurland Bolshoi.