The 23 kilometre long standard gauge branch line was opened as a Lokalbahn on 16 November 1892 by the Royal Bavarian State Railways.

Passenger traffic was lively: in 1963 nine pairs of trains ran daily on weekdays and five on Sundays.

In response to that the „Localbahn Aischgrund Society was founded in 1984 in an attempt to set up a museum railway line.

It was proposed that, as a first step, a diesel-operated passenger service would be revived between Forchheim and Hemhofen and, then later, a possible extension to Höchstadt would follow.

In 2002 discussions about the reactivation of the line foundered, when the communities involved were not prepared to take on the financial risk.