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Taking The BOB (Berner Oberland Bahn/ Bernese Oberland Railway
An introduction to travelling on the Bernese Oberland Railway (the Berner Oberland Bahn) including images taken from the trains of the spectacular scenery
Simon HarperShare
Trains operated by the Bernese Oberland Railway/Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB) operate on two routes from/to Interlaken Ost station.
1: Interlaken Ost – Wilderswill – Grindelwald
2: Interlaken Ost – Wilderswill – Lauterbrunnen
Between Interlaken Ost and Wilderswill the BOB trains heading to Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen are usually joined together.
They’re actually separated a stop further on at Zweilutschinen station.
The route to Grindelwald is more scenic than that to Lauterbrunnen, sit on the right (when facing the direction of travel for the best of the views) - all of the images below were taken from this journey from the right hand side of a train TO Grindelwald.
Connections with other railways:
Interlaken Ost station is served by direct trains from/to Basel, Bern and Luzern.
At Wilderswill station connections are available to the spectacular Schyinge Platte Bahn railway, from which there are views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains.
At Lauterbrunnen station there is a connection to Mürren via a combination of the aerial cableway and BML trains.
At both Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen stations the BOB trains connect into trains operated by the Wengernalpbahn (WAB).
The transfer at both stations simply involves crossing the platform from one train to another.
If you’re heading from Interlaken Ost TO Wengen, take the BOB trains between Interlaken Ost and Lauterbrunnen and connect there for the WAB trains.
The WAB trains connect both Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen to Kleine Scheidegg station.
At Kleine Scheidegg station connections are available into JB trains that ascend to Europe’s highest station, Jungfraujoch.
So If you’re heading to Jungfraujoch from Interlaken Ost, it doesn’t matter if you travel via Grindelwald or Lauterbrunnen.
Kleine Scheidegg station is approximately half way between Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen.
So the best option is to travel to Kleine Scheidegg via Grindelwald and return via Lauterbrunnen (or vice versa).
Connections to cable car routes
The BOB route also connects in Grindelwald with three of Switzeland's most incredible cable car routes:
- the Eiger Express cable car and
- the Mannlichen cable car route to Wengen,
- the Grindelwald First Gondaola cable car route.
to the Eiger Express
Most of final part of the railway route up to Europe's highest station at Jungfraujoch tunnels through the mountain, but Eigergletscher is the final open-air station, it is the fist station on from Kleine Scheidegg.
Eigergletscher is now also the summit station of the Eiger Express cable car, which has its base station in Grindelwald.
So the faster route from Interlaken to Jungfraujoch is to connect at Grindelwald Terminal station, for the Eiger Express, where the base station for the Eiger Express is a few minutes walk away.
Though what can be a tad confusing is that Grindelwald Terminal is not the final stop on the route from Interlaken, the trains carry on to the main Grindelwald station in the centre of the village.
Berner Oberland Passes and Jungfrau Summer Passes include both the Eiger Express and the trains between Eigergletscher and Interlaken, with special tickets available for journeys between Eigergletscher and Jungfraujoch.
to the Mannlichen cable car route
Grindelwald Terminal station is also the interchange into Switzerland's longest cable car route which heads to Wengen.
It stops by Wengen station, from where you can head down the mountain to Lauterbrunnen and connect for Murren and the cable car to Schilthorn.
to the Grindelwald First gondola
The base station for the Grindelwald First Gondaola is less than a five minute walk from the final stop of the line in the main Grindelwald station in the heart of the village.
The cable car takes travellers up to the First Cliff Walk.
Using tickets and rail passes:
Tickets between SBB stations and BOB stations can be booked on the SBB booking service.
Tickets and details of journeys between Interlaken Ost and Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Kleine Scheidegg, Jungfraujoch, Mürren, Schyinge Platte and Wengen are all available on the ‘Jungfrau Top Of Europe’ website.
However, tickets are not discounted if booked online in advance, so will cost the same if booked at any BOB station, including Interlaken Ost.
A plus of booking online is that the connections at Interlaken Ost into BOB trains can be tightly timed.
- Eurail; InterRail = 50% discount
- Swiss Travel Pass and Saver Day Passes = free travel.
- Berner Oberland Pass* = free travel
- Jungfrau Summer Pass* = free travel
- Top Of Europe Winter Pass* = free travel
*= these passes also give free travel on the cable cars from Grindelwald, Swiss Travel Passes give a 50% discount.
Simon Harper
I wanted to share my passion for train travel and explain how anyone can take the fantastic journeys I have taken.
This is one of more than 100 train travel guides available on ShowMeTheJourney, which will make it easier to take the train journeys you want or need to make. As always, all images were captured on trips taken by ShowMeTheJourney.
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