The original starting point of the line was at Wolfsgefärth station on the existing Prussian Leipzig–Probstzella railway.

The new line required an elaborate new bridge over the White Elster and its floodplains at Liebschwitz.

The so-called "lower railway" (untere Bahn) was designed for the implementation of two-track operation throughout (tunnels, bridge abutments).

The Elster Viaduct (Elstertalbrücke) on the heavily used line from Gößnitz to Plauen was blown up by the German army on 16 April 1945.

There were also some long-distance rail passenger services to Czechoslovakia, since until the 1970s, the more easterly "upper railway" via Werdau and Reichenbach was partly only single-track due to the dismantling in the post war period and was therefore overloaded.

Analogous to this was the use of the parallel Werdau–Mehltheuer railway as a relief route, but for connections to southern Germany.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the operation of the Ex 68 Karola once again provided a high-quality long-distance connection in the form of diesel multiple units.

This was made possible by the conversion from 1979 of the locomotive-hauled Vindobona trains from class VT 18.16 diesel multiple units.

Passenger services have been operated jointly by Vogtlandbahn and Deutsche Bahn since 9 December 2012.

Special excursions with steam locomotives run between Gera and Cheb, usually on weekends and holidays in the autumn.

Freight transport is normally restricted to trains between Gera and Greiz-Dölau, as well as transfers between Weischlitz and Plauen-Chrieschwitz.

These wagons are detached in Plauen ob Bf and transferred to the line to Cheb ("upper railway") and reverse in Weischlitz.

During the construction the line between Plauen-Chrieschwitz and Weischlitz was blockaded until 2 November, so that buses replaced trains on this section.

In 2016, DB Netz AG launched a project for the restoration of the link to the former Wolfsgefärth station (called Gera-Röppisch since 1953; not to be confused with the new halt of Wolfsgefährt, which has been located further south since 2000) that existed until 1892, but instead of restoring the former station, only a junction was built.

With its commissioning, the Saxon State Railways route via Gera Ost, Gera-Liebschwitz and the viaduct over the Elster, which had existed since 1892, has now been closed.

Since then, the trains have been running from Wolfsgefärth over the largely parallel line of the Leipzig–Probstzella railway to Gera.

Trains leave Gera Süd station on a two-track railway and passed under the southeast tangent road to a junction, where the line to Saalfeld runs to the south and the line to Gößnitz branches off to the east.

On the second half of the route, the White Elster is crossed a total of fourteen times and it parallels Bundesstraße 92 closely as far as Elsterberg.

Among the most striking points on the line is the following section under the Elster Viaduct, which carried the Leipzig–Hof railway.

Immediately afterwards the line runs to the confluence of the Trieb and passes the Pöhl dam, which lies 800 metre to the east.

The station had the following names: Since the numerous level crossings were a hindrance to road traffic, the tracks were raised between 1906 and 1911.

The station had the following names: With the relocation of the rail operations on the Gera Süd–Wolfsgefärth section to the parallel Leipzig–Probstzella railway, Bahnhof Gera-Liebschwitz was closed on 24 October 2016.

The station in the north of the town has, besides an entrance building, a staff residence, a freight shed and two signal boxes.

The station of the settlement of Rentzschmühle, which is part of the Saxon municipality of Pöhl, lies in the valley of the White Elster on the edge of the Thuringian village of Cossengrün.

There is a halt on the latter railway in the town of Jocketa, which lies only a few kilometres to the east of Barthmühle station.

In the area that was released, a pallet yard was built during the building of the Plattenbau district of Plauen-Chrieschwitz.

It was necessary, because the variation of height within the city of Plauen meant that it was not possible to connect the railway running in the White Elster valley to the upper station.

The station was served until 6 September 2015 by hourly regional trains on line VB 6 of the Vogtlandbahn (Weischlitz–Gera).

Even after the Saxon-Thuringian railway company had been taken over by the government of Saxony, nothing changed in the method of operations.

Around 1900, major reconstruction took place, after which the station remained essentially unchanged until the end of the Second World War.