The story
BOB was founded on 31 March 1998 and began service the same year. The company was launched to create more competition on the rail systems of southern Bavaria.
In the early days of service BOB trains were often plagued by technical problems with the new/untested Integral train set. These initial problems have since been resolved and BOB is now considered very reliable.
Since the beginning of July 2004 BOB has added three Bombardier Talent Train-sets to cover rush hour service.
BOB also operates on some DB electric lines using FLIRT3 electric multiple units from Stadler Rail. Between December 2013 and June 2020 these services were operated under the Meridian brand name.
On June 8, 2015, Bayerische Oberlandbahn GmbH was awarded the contract by the Verkehrsverbund Mittelsachsen (VMS) to operate the so-called E-Net Mittelsachsen from June 2016 to December 2030. The "Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn" brand of the sister company Transdev Regio Ost, based in Leipzig, is used for this purpose. Bayerische Oberlandbahn GmbH acts as the operating railway company in this contract. The vehicles used, of the type Alstom Coradia Continental, and the workshop in Chemnitz are owned by VMS, and the personnel are provided by Transdev Mitteldeutschland GmbH.
On February 9, 2016, two Meridian trains of Bayerische Oberlandbahn GmbH, carrying around 150 passengers, collided head-on on the Mangfalltalbahn between Bad Aibling and Kolbermoor. In the rail accident, the most severe in Bavaria since 1975, 12 people lost their lives. 85 were injured, 24 of them seriously.
In 2020, the aging Talent and Integral type railcars were gradually replaced by brand new diesel vehicles of the type "Alstom Coradia LINT54". With the timetable change for 2020/2021, Bayerische Oberlandbahn GmbH received six additional vehicles of this type for the Oberland, financed by BEG, enabling service enhancements and additional connections to meet the increasing passenger volume.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bayerische Oberlandbahn, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4