On 31 January 1877 the
Bavarian state railway ordered six, very powerful,
0-6-0 tank locomotives from the
Lokomotivfabrik Maffei in
Munich. A month after opening the Forest railway it ordered 4 more engines which were delivered in February and March 1878. They were given the names
Ulrichsberg,
Gotteszell,
Ludwigsthal and
Eisenstein. The
Reichsbahn gave them the numbers 89 8107 to 110 and they were retired between 1925 and 1928. These tank engines were employed on the
Waldbahn for many years, predominantly on goods duties. Passenger services were initially hauled by the two
Ostbahn engines, E 1 and E 2, tender locomotives with a
0-4-0 wheel arrangement. Then, according to von Welser (see
Sources), the former
Ostbahn 2-4-0 Class B engines were deployed here for passenger duties. They were redesignated as
Class B V by the state railway and given numbers 1003–1068. On
15 May 1880 four pairs of passenger trains per day ran on the Forest Railway. Two faster pairs of trains made connexions with
Prague and ran to and from
Landau. They needed 2 hours 20 minutes for the
Eisenstein–
Plattling run, the other pairs of trains took 4 hours. In
May 1897 four trains ran daily from Eisenstein to Plattling and five in the opposite direction. The journey time was between 2 and 2 ½ hours. However, there was also a train to Eisenstein, presumably hauling goods wagons, that needed 5 hours for the journey. One pair of trains had 1st to 3rd class through coaches for the
Landshut–
Pilsen service. Two other pairs of trains ran on the
Deggendorf–
Pilsting–
Neumarkt–
Mühldorf–
Rosenheim route. There was no through service to Landshut. In
October 1913 the timetable now offered a service from Landshut via Landau to Eisenstein instead of the previous Eisenstein–Plattling–Rosenheim one. Five pairs of trains ran daily on the Plattling–Eisenstein section with 2nd and 3rd class coaches. In the direction of Eisenstein the trains needed about 2 hours 20 minutes, in the direction of Plattling only 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hours. A further 4 train pairs ran daily between Deggendorf and Landshut. One had to change in Landau for Mühldorf/Rosenheim. No through coaches to Bohemia are listed. In
1936 the
Deutsche Reichsbahn recorded in its timetable, route number 426 Landshut–Plattling–Eisenstein, 7 train pairs daily, of which 6 ran to and from Landshut. These trains also ran with 2nd class coaches. Because the transportation of luggage and bicycles was limited on two of the pairs of trains, these may have been railbuses. An early train worked the line in 1 hour and 30 minutes, the others took about 10 to 15 minutes longer. In addition, 4 pairs of trains shuttled between Deggendorf and Plattling each day. The trains ran on to Bohemia 5 times a day, albeit always with a stop of one or more hours at Eisenstein.
Traffic after the Second World War After the end of the Second World War, traffic to
Bohemia came to a standstill. When the
Iron Curtain fell, the
ČSSR erected a barbed wire fence across the station yard and cut the tracks. Czech trains now terminated at the village of
Železná Ruda several kilometres north of the border. The
Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) ran its trains up to the
buffer stop at the border fence in
Bayerisch Eisenstein station and used the southern half of the divided station building. In the building the border was closed by walls. The DB withdrew steam operations for goods traffic in the 1970s. On 6 March 1974 the last scheduled
steam locomotive service took place. Number 053 063-4 (
DRB Class 50) hauled train number N 2964 from Plattling to Bayerisch Eisenstein and its return service N 2977 on 7 March. For a long time
Uerdingen railbuses and
Class V 100 diesel locomotives worked the line. Until the mid-1990s parts of InterCity (IC) trains ran as far as Zwiesel, as did a travel agency special until 1987: a
VT-601 train. The border crossing of
Bayerisch Eisenstein was opened again on 2 June 1991. Since then, after a short wait, one can change into České drahy (ČD) trains to
Klatovy (
Klattau) and
Plzeň (Pilsen). During shunting both railway administrations use the track system without regard to the border.
Railway traffic today The
Deggendorf–
Metten branch closed in 1984 to passenger services and 1991 to goods traffic. Deggendorf–Kalteneck withdrew its passenger services in two stages: in 1972 on the Eging–Kalteneck section and in 1981 on the Deggendorf–Eging stretch; the line was subsequently lifted in 1999 (Eging–Kalteneck) and 2004 (Hengersberg–Eging). However the other branches of the Forest Railway remain. The track from Deggendorf to
Hengersberg still exists. Regular passenger services from
Gotteszell to
Viechtach ceased on 1 May 1991. Today only vehicles going to the
Regentalbahn workshop in Viechtach run along it. In addition, mainly in the summer months, the tourist trains of the
Wanderbahn (KBS 12905) work the line with a renovated
Esslingen railbus in historic livery belonging to the Regentalbahn. This typical NE railcar worked both the Zwiesel–Bodenmais and Zwiesel–Grafenau branches from 1993 to 1997. Since 1997 the Regentalbahn has operated the Bavarian Forest railway (KBS 905) and the branches to
Grafenau (KBS 906) and
Bodenmais (KBS 907) under contract from
DB Regio Bayern using
Regio-Shuttles under the trade name
Waldbahn. Zwiesel is today the timetable hub with short waiting times just before the hour for those changing trains in any direction. The hub on the
Waldbahn was transferred here from
Regen several years ago. This was made possible by moving the former crossing at Ulrichsberg to a newly built crossing loop further north at Grafling. This also enabled changeover times at the timetable hub of Plattling to be shortened by 10 minutes. Trains run to
Bayerisch Eisenstein and
Bodenmais from
Plattling hourly; to
Grafenau the railcars run every 2 hours. In the course of modernisation of the rail traffic on this route and in order to make public transit more attractive for tourists and locals, in 1999 a special fare, the
Bayerwald-Ticket (Bavarian Forest Ticket) was offered. This is a day ticket that is valid on the
Waldbahn lines as well as many bus routes in the counties of Regen,
Freyung-Grafenau and
Cham. Since December 2013 Regental Bahnbetriebs GmbH has gained the contract to run this service.(Platform 5 European Handbook No.2B German Railways Private Operators, Museums and Museum Lines)
Cross-border traffic As the summer timetable came into force on 28 May 2006 scheduled services ran for the first time on the
Waldbahn every two hours directly from Plattling via Bayerisch Eisenstein as far as the Czech station of
Špičák (Spitzberg) and back. In the 2008 timetable two pairs of trains ran daily to Špičák. In addition, in the winter season there are three extra pairs of trains run on weekdays and five at weekends. In the summer three additional pairs of trains run each day. == Expansion ==