Bavarian Eastern Railway

The Royal Bavarian Eastern Railway Company (Königlich privilegirte Actiengesellschaft der bayerischen Ostbahnen) or Bavarian Ostbahn was founded in 1856. Within just two decades it built an extensive railway network in the eastern Bavarian provinces of Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) and Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern) that had previously been largely undisturbed by the railway. Much of this network is still important for local and long distance rail traffic operated by the Deutsche Bahn today.

The construction of the Bavarian state railway network had concentrated, during the first decade, on the 3 major lines: Ludwig's South-North Railway, Ludwig's Western Railway and the Bavarian Maximilian's Railway. At that point the majority of the Bavarian State Parliament rejected any further expansion of the state railway network due to the state's financial situation and the fact that railway operations were still largely unprofitable in those days. As a result, large parts of eastern Bavaria would still have remained unconnected to the railway network had not parliament passed a law on 19 March 1856, which permitted more private railway companies to be established and simplified their financing by the offer of guaranteed, state interest rates.

As well as private individuals, businessmen, factory owners and brewers from eastern Bavaria, others from outside the region became involved in order to improve their own businesses. These included Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis and four commercial institutions from Regensburg, as well as the manufacturers Theodor von Cramer-Klett of Nuremberg and J.A. Maffei of Munich. They generated a start-up capital of 60 million gulden for railway construction in eastern Bavaria and for the associated running and rolling stock. In the same year they founded the Bavarian Eastern Railway.

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