NordOstBayerische Eisenbahndienstleistungen (NOBEG)

Updated: August 2026 – Some company names tell a whole story, others only half of it. NordOstBayerische Eisenbahndienstleistungen (NOBEG) belongs to the second sort: the name gives a region and a line of business, but no specific type of traffic. This page shows how far you can get with a name like that – and looks at something that shapes daily life on secondary and siding lines: the level crossing.

What is NOBEG?

NordOstBayerische Eisenbahndienstleistungen is a regionally located railway company with the character of a service provider. The name splits into two parts: “NordOstBayerisch” locates the company geographically in north-east Bavaria, while “Eisenbahndienstleistungen” (railway services) describes the fact that work is carried out for clients – not what kind.

That’s exactly why this page is cautious about classification: a focus such as freight, local passenger services or heritage operation can’t be inferred from the name, and making something up would be worse than leaving an open gap. What can be said is this: a company with “services” in its name typically works in the background – much like many smaller companies that operate in the Bavarian network alongside established regional operators such as agilis or Länderbahn.

Identification in the field: data panel before colour

For service-provider railways, livery fails almost completely as a means of identification. Vehicles are leased from companies such as On Rail, move between clients and often keep the colours of a previous user for years. The reliable route therefore runs through the markings.

The level crossing: interface between rail and road

On main lines, level crossings have become rare. On secondary lines, sidings and industrial railways, though, they are everyday – and they determine how quickly and how laboriously a train can be moved there. A level crossing is a crossing on the level between a railway line and a road, path or square. The St Andrew’s cross signals the priority of rail traffic.

How a crossing is protected depends on several factors: the permitted line speed, the volume of road traffic, the sighting distance onto the railway line, and the type of crossing way.

Type of protection	What the road user sees	What the driver does	Typical setting
Full barriers	Barriers across the whole carriageway, light signals	proceeds once cleared by the monitoring signal	busier roads
Half barriers with light signals	Barrier across the right-hand half of the carriageway	watches the monitoring signal	country and local roads
Light signals only	Flashing or red light, no barrier	watches the monitoring signal	minor roads, farm tracks
Whistle signal and sighting	St Andrew’s cross only	sounds the warning signal at the whistle board	slowly run secondary lines
Protection by an attendant	A person stops road traffic	proceeds on instruction and confirmation	faults, engineering works and siding operation

Non-technically protected crossings aren’t a makeshift arrangement, but a regulated form of protection with its own conditions. They only work because trains run slowly there and because sighting or warning conditions have to be met. For observers, that means the reverse: exactly at these spots a train can turn up without a barrier, without a flashing light and without advance warning. Which distances apply is summed up in the guide on the safe distance from the track.

What this means for vehicles and train formations

Where there are many level crossings and the permitted speed is low, heavy main-line locomotives aren’t needed. What you find instead are typically nimble machines with good visibility to both sides, of the kind Vossloh built in series in Kiel, along with short train formations that can still move through tight spots.

Operating situation	Suitable type of vehicle	How you recognise it
As-required run on the secondary line	Medium-weight diesel locomotive	Centre cab or two cabs, exhaust rather than pantograph
Shunting at the siding	Compact shunting locomotive	Short frame, shunter’s steps, slow running
Passenger working on the secondary line	Single-car or short diesel railcar	Few doors, small body
Transfer trip to the main line	Main-line diesel locomotive with a few wagons	Longer locomotive, mixed group of wagons

You’ll find concrete examples in the vehicle database, such as the versatile Class 212, the MaK G 1206, which is widely used in industrial and siding traffic, or the secondary-line railcar Regio-Shuttle RS1. The Nordbayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft is another example of a company with a regional name and a broad remit.

Observing safely – and logging it cleanly

The level crossing is a tempting photo spot because it lets you get legally close to the line. That’s exactly why most mistakes happen there.

The guide to the sightings logbook shows how to turn this into a solid collection over months.

Common mix-ups

• Service provider and client – a company running on behalf of someone else often doesn’t appear in the timetable at all. The firm on the vehicle isn’t necessarily the firm on the waybill.
• Keeper and operator – for leased locomotives, the data panel names the leasing company, not the user.
• Level crossing and platform crossing – a crossing over the tracks at a platform is not a level crossing in the sense of the road traffic rules.
• Whistle signal and warning signal – not every warning signal applies to a level crossing; it can also apply to people on the track or an area with poor visibility.
• Secondary line and siding – a public secondary line is something different from a private siding with its own rules.

Conclusion

NOBEG is an example of how a company name sometimes only marks out the frame: region and line of business are fixed, the rest stays open. Anyone encountering such companies in the field gets further with the data panel, the vehicle number and a precise location than with any guess.