The route played an important role in opening up the region, in transporting agricultural goods, in school traffic, and also for tourism.

The Rotenburg–Visselhövede section was closed to passenger traffic on 1 June 1958, the last services being just a daily pair of trains in the form of railbuses.

Although passenger services between Bremervörde and Rotenburg ceased on 29 September 1968, there continues to be a lively amount of goods traffic on the line.

Their goods trains work the route between Bremervörde and Rotenburg; traffic on the Rotenburg–Brockel section was withdrawn on 31 December 2002, only potatoes being transported here in its last years.

The railway, on which the legendary steam locomotive Heini traveled to the surrounding villages, still exists today but is only worked by goods traffic.

After leaving the Bremerhaven – Hamburg route, which is still used by passenger trains, it heads southwards into a region of sprawling geest countryside with numerous pine woods, running parallel to the B 71 through Bevern, Deinstedt, Selsingen, past the former concentration camp at Sandbostel, through Seedorf and Godenstedt to Zeven.

Running past Elsdorf with its dairy, Gyhum, Mulmshorn, Bötersen, where a track to Rotenburg barracks branches off, and Waffensen, it reaches the bridge over the Rollbahn.

Until the introduction of railbuses a steam-hauled passenger train known as Fidi ran from here to the surrounding villages with coaches known colloquially as Donnerbüchsen.

Leaving Rotenburg station in an easterly direction, the route to Visselhövede branched to the southwest away from the Rollbahn after the bridge over the Wümme.

In front of the level crossing on Harburger Straße near the Roman Catholic church, there is a large hypermarket today.

Until the 1990s there was a goods station here for a local agricultural cooperative and the old wayside stop of Rotenburg Harburger Straße, which was in service in the 1950s for a short time.

It then ran in a sharp left curve in order to enter Visselhövede station from the west together with the "America Line".

From the east it is joined by the Heath Railway from Bad Fallingbostel and both routes then run together into Walsrode station from the north.