The Backnang–Ludwigsburg railway is a line on the northern edge of the Stuttgart region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, linking Backnang and Ludwigsburg.

The Backnang–Bietigheim line was opened in 1879 as a branch of the Murr Valley Railway from Waiblingen to Hessenthal and left the current route at Beihingen-Heutingsheim (now part of Freiberg am Neckar).

The section between Beihingen-Heutingsheim and Bietigheim (now called Bietigheim-Bissingen) was damaged during the Second World War and was never returned to operation.

Thereafter, the line leaves the floor of the valley and after Erdmannhausen runs through a 2 km long and up to 11 m deep cutting through the watershed between the Murr and the Neckar.

In a speech the Württemberg Minister of Transport, Karl von Varnbüler announced on 28 April 1865 that the Murr Valley Railway would be built from Waiblingen to Schwäbisch Hall with a branch from Backnang to Bietigheim.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and the subsequent Unification of Germany, construction of the Backnang-Bietigheim line was sought by the national government for military-strategic reasons.

To allow troops to be speedily transported in the east–west direction from northern Bavaria to the French border, the plans were adjusted so that the line ran in a curve from the south to reach Bietigheim station via an underpass under the railway from Stuttgart.

Since the entrance building was built on an island between the tracks of the Northern and Western Railway, a complete renovation of Bietigheim station was considered.

Construction of the Murr Valley Railway from Hall to Backnang with the two branches to Waiblingen and to Bietigheim were authorised under an order of 22 March 1873.

A few months later, on 29 December 1873, the Württemberg and Baden governments signed an agreement for the construction of the Kraichgau Railway to Heilbronn.

During the construction of the line there were some significant problems: cuttings of up to 13 m deep—the deepest in Württemberg—were needed through glacial moraine between Beihingen-Heutingsheim and Bietigheim.

The most complex structure in the stretch was the Neckar Viaduct at Marbach, which was built as a five-span steel truss bridge with a total length of 345 m. Trains began running on the Backnang–Bietigheim line on 8 December 1879.

After Deutsche Reichsbahn took over the facilities of the Royal Württemberg State Railways in 1921, the original constrained stations at Backnang, Burgstall, Marbach and Ludwigsburg were expanded.

Due to its strategic importance as an east–west axis, the line was the repeated target of Allied air attacks at the end of the Second World War.

On a Sunday morning in the spring of 1945, a freight train running towards Bietigheim through Beihingen (now part of Freiberg am Neckar) was covered with bombs by a fighter-bomber and destroyed.

After the completion of the work it on 2 June 1996, it was possible for electrically hauled freight trains to run directly from Kornwestheim marshalling yard to Nuremberg.

[2] In July 2008 the participating municipalities and districts signed an agreement to finance the extension between Marbach and Backnang.

To a much lesser extent there were also long-distance passenger services on the east–west route: for example, in the summer 1914 timetable an express train (D-Zug, a fast and luxurious express using carriages with compartments and having a corridor) ran from Cheb (then a largely German speaking city called Eger) to Bietigheim with some of its coaches running from Nuremberg to Paris and a fast train (S-Zug, slower and less luxurious than a D-Zug and using carriages with compartments but having no corridor) from Hof to Bietigheim, with through coaches from Nuremberg to Luxembourg and Trier.

From 1931, an express service ran for two years on this line between Nuremberg and Strasbourg with through coaches from Prague to Paris.