The company received a royal concession on 18 February 1865 to build a line operated by standard gauge locomotives for passenger and goods services between Plattling Ostbahn station and Fischerdorf on the right bank of the Danube opposite Deggendorf.
Early plans to operate a horse-drawn wagonway were dropped, but they then had to accept that the end of the line would be on the right bank, because the bridge over the Danube, built in 1859, was too weak to take locomotives.
The line ran from the station at Plattling, opened in 1860 by the Bavarian Eastern Railway Company (AG der Bayerischen Ostbahnen) without any large structures, as far as the Danube landing place opposite Deggendorf and had a length of 8,695 m. It was opened on 8 March 1866; operations having already started on 1 March.
Previous to that, the Deggendorf had hauled shuttle services between Geiselhöring and Sünching on the Regensburg–Passau railway; the Bayerwald had been diverted to the line from Miltenberg to Amorbach.
On the construction of the Bavarian Forest railway from Plattling via Deggendorf and Zwiesel to Bayerisch Eisenstein in 1873, the roadbed of the Deggendorf–Plattling line could not be used, because the new railway line had to be laid northwest of the old route due to the steep inclines near the edge of the Bavarian Forest and this required a higher station at Deggendorf.