Black Forest Railroad

1. If you stay in one of the towns that offers the Konus Card with your lodging (Offenburg is one <-- THIS IS WRONG! My apologies! Posting too late at night!), you get free transport on the regional trains (and on buses). No ticket purchase required! The page I linked has a link to the 2017 English flyer.

2. I stayed in Gengenbach, which is very cute. I also enjoyed Alpirsbach (great kloister that later became a boarding school and has an area of its museum that shows artifacts from 16th century boarding school life) and Shiltach (lots of half-timbered houses/buildings). The Open Air Museum at Gutach is pretty awesome (train stop right beside it). Titisee and Schluchsee offer a contrast between a touristy lake overrun with international tourists and a larger lake that is popular with German vacationers. There are many hikes in the area. I like trains, so I found the Schwarzwaldbahn Erlebnispfad at the Triberg train station particularly interesting.

3. I have not been on the railroad in the last month.

EDIT: OBVIOUS.

I just looked up the schedule for Offenburg to Donaueschingen, which includes all of the Schwarzwaldbahn, for Saturday and Monday, and there was no sign of a "bus bridge" on the route. The Bahn schedule showed just an RE (regional express) train between those two points. Normally, if they were working on the rails and had establish such a bridge, you would see the "product" for the connection as "RE, Bus", and the details would show a portion of the connection as an "SEV" (Schienen Ersatz Verkehr or substitute bus). None was shown for tomorrow or Monday.

I rode the Schwarzwaldbahn in January of 2002. It was a spectacular ride on the rails hanging over the Gutach river valley with fresh new snow sparkling in the villages below. The station for Triberg (Tree bayhk) is a little out of town, but buses into town seem to meet the trains. From town you can hike up to the waterfall in Triberg.

Just make sure you only take regional trains with the KONUS card -- we took a train into Freiberg that turned out to be ICE and had to buy additional tickets on board.

According to the KONUS flyer www.blackforest-tourism.com, Offenburg is NOT a KONUS town. A Baden-Wurttemberg ticket will give transportation for the day

Offenburg IMHO is less interesting and far less attractive than the other BF Railway towns - many of them also KONUS towns - further along the line. Of these, Gengenbach is perhaps the most attractive. Here's a map. Not all stops are shown (the recently added Gutach Freilichtmuseum stop, for example.)

This page includes links to information on some of the towns. To that list I would add Haslach (costume museum, attractive town, silver mine "Segen Gottes", and a memorial site on the location of a former Nazi work-camp called "Gedenkstätte Vulkan" - hit the "Google translate" button on this page for more info.) Both places are just outside of town. Villingen is also a very attractive town if you venture that far up the railway.

The BF Railway is not the only scenic train line of interest. You can catch a train along the upper Kinzig River Valley to Wolfach, Schiltach, Alpirsbach and Freudenstadt as well. See train line map.

"Bavaria Ben" is a travel forum regular whose name belies the fact that he has done many Black Forest farmhouse stays; he has removed his own excellent website from the Internet - but some of his posts and reviews remain online here and there. I've always found his comments informative and helpful. Maybe you will too. Here are some of those.

But to your original question, if you are not staying at a Konus participating establishment, The Baden-Wuerttemberg Ticket for 2 people is 30 EUR. Unlimited travel in the Black Forest regional trains (and buses) beginning 9 am weekdays, anytime weekends and holidays. Trains run every hour in each direction. As luck would have it, they depart Offenburg at 59 past the hour. So to jump start a week day trip, buy local tickets to Gengenbach for a couple of EUR to get on the 8:59.

You buy the tickets out of a vending machine at Offenburg station, or pay an extra 2 EUR to buy at the ticket window. Write both names on the back of the ticket in ink.

I agree with an earlier poster that Offenburg is not that attractive a town. If you don't have a particular reason for staying in Offenburg, perhaps stay in a town more in the actual Black Forest, like Gengenbach.

As for the upper Kinzig valley rail line, I've been on it several times, as well as on the BF railroad, and, although the scenery is pretty, it cannot compare with the BF railroad, with it's switchbacks, tunnels, and views.

I just looked up the schedule for Offenburg to Donaueschingen, which includes all of the Schwarzwaldbahn, for Saturday and Monday, and there was no sign of a "bus bridge" on the route.

According to the construction site directory of the DB there will be "bus bridges" on Sun Jun 1 and from Thu Jul 18 till Sun Jul 20 (scroll down, click on "S-Bahn/Regionalverkehr", and locate the entries for line # 720).

there will be "bus bridges" on Sun Jun 1

What year is that? This year, 2019, June 1 is a Saturday. Sunday is June 2.

According to that webpage, the bus bridge will be between Rudolfzell and Überlingen,, July 18-20.

And there might be a slight time delay on June 16. It's only for one train, RE 4704.

I don't see anything about a bus bridge on the BF Railroad on June 1 or 2.