Today, the line starts at the Berlin Stadtbahn and the Ringbahn and passes through the southeastern landscapes of the Spreewald and Lower Lusatia to the railway junction of Görlitz.

The line was built by the "railway king" Bethel Henry Strousberg as general contractor and opened in 1866 and 1867 for passenger and freight transport.

On 7 August 1905, there an error by a dispatcher, leading to two trains crashing head-on between Spremberg and Schleife causing the death of 19 people and seriously injuring 40 others.

[3] Around 1906, the entire railway line of the Görlitzer Bahn was raised in the Berlin area to remove level crossings.

As part of this work, additional tracks were laid in Berlin between the Stadtbahn and Ringbahn and Grünau to cope with heavy suburban traffic.

The gradual replacement of the second track began from 1970, but the vast majority of the line over a length of 112.9 km between Lübbenau and Görlitz is still single-track.

[2] In February 2010, the double-track, electrified eastern connection of the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) gained planning approval and was completed just a year later.

The old freight track to the tank farm at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport South (Kerosinbahn, "jet fuel"—not "kerosene"—railway), which began at Grünau station, was taken out of service at the end of March 2011 and subsequently dismantled.

Since then, operations to the tank farm and the BER concrete plant have been carried out on the new tracks from the eastern connection;[4] the siding branches off west of the A 113 and is electrified to the transfer yard.

[5] By a decision of 23 July 2012, the Federal Railway Authority declared a 4.5 hectares (11 acres) area, in the district of Treptow-Köpenick, located between track-kilometre 0.9 and 2.2, to be free of rail operations.

[15] In July 2024, a financing agreement was signed between the federal government and Deutsche Bahn for the double-track expansion and electrification of the section between Cottbus and Görlitz.

[16] The financing of the projected costs of up to 100 million euros will also come from structural aid funds due to the coal phase-out.

The bridges over Sterndamm and the platforms will be renewed, the entrance building will be modernised and the northern forecourt will be rebuilt to a new design.

[18] The re-commissioning of the long-distance rail tracks between Ostkreuz and Schöneweide, which had been interrupted by the construction, was originally planned for the timetable change in December 2014.

Deutsche Bahn let tenders for the construction work for the renewal of the track and overhead line systems between Ostkreuz and Grünauer Kreuz in October 2012.

For this purpose, it is planned to clear the area and develop and move three kilometres of the bordering mainline track and demolish some buildings.

The OE65 service (Cottbus – Zittau) is operated on the Cottbus–Görlitz section by ODEG, which replaced Lausitzbahn at the timetable change on 14 December 2008.

After 1994, a connecting path was built on the railway embankment between Görlitzer Park and Alt-Treptow, although this is interrupted in the area of the extended A 100 and the Ringbahn.

Trains that travel to and from the Hauptbahnhof (central station) or Ostbahnhof are diverted to the Outer ring in southeast Berlin at Grünau Cross (Grünauer Kreuz) to the Silesian Railway and the Stadtbahn.

By a decision of 23 July 2012, the Federal Railway Authority declared a 4.5 hectares (11 acres) area, in the district of Treptow-Köpenick, located between track-kilometre 0.9 and 2.2, to be free of rail operations.