It received its current name as a result of the division of the Puster Valley Railway into an Austrian and an Italian part after 1918.

Südbahngesellschaft (Imperial–royal, "privileged"—by the grant of a concession—Southern Railway Company) and extended from Maribor (then officially referred to under its German name of Marburg) to Villach.

The original concession (1856: Maribor–Villach–Brixen with a Villach–Gorizia—branch) was held by another company, which, however, could not raise the capital to build this large project.

After the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, the line suddenly lay in three different states and thus lost its historical unity.

[7] Services are mostly operated with class SZ813/814 railcars, which were built between 1973 and 1976 by Fiat Ferroviaria and TVT Maribor.

These RJ, EC, IC or EN services are pulled or pushed by class 1144, 1116 and 1216 locomotives.

Since the 2014/15 timetable change, fourteen FLIRT trains have been running every hour from Lienz to Franzensfeste,[9] with interchange to services to Innsbruck or Bolzano (Bozen).

The six-part ETR170 sets are equipped for operation under 3 kV DC (Italy) and 15 kV/16.7 Hz AC (Austria).