In addition, the border between Bavaria and Prussia in the middle and lower Glan valley, especially from Altenglan to Staudernheim, was very irregular, making construction difficult.

[2] In 1860, a committee was formed called Notabeln des Glan- und Lautertales (notables of the Glan and Lauter valleys).

The Hessian Privy Councillor Christian Bansa also supported the proposed rail link in 1861 in discussions with the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arguing that there was a greater need for it than for the planned line along the Alsenz.

Because of the border, which would also hinder the construction, there were at the time plans for a branch line from Altenglan to St Julian, which would run exclusively through Bavarian Palatinate.

Moreover, the railway entrepreneur Karl Jakob von Lavale had agreed that the Board would be responsible for half the land acquisition costs.

Construction work on closing the gap to Staudernheim began on 2 November, but on the same day a flood scoured the embankment at Odenbach and interrupted traffic.

[6] At the same time Bavaria reversed its opposition to a strategic railway line along the entire Glan as Germany's relations with France had deteriorated in the meantime.

This culminated in an agreement, concluded in November 1900, to build a strategic railway along the Glan, which would be the shortest connection from the Saar region to the Rhine.

The main purpose of the route was kept secret, so the Palatine district offices received a circular which prohibited the use of terms such as "strategic line" or "military railway" in public.

Nevertheless, an article entitled "Die Strategische Bahn in der Pfalz” (The Strategic Railway in the Palatinate) still appeared two years later in the Pfälzische Presse newspaper.

Material obtained in digging a new bed for the Glan River was used for the construction of an embankment for the railway to prevent flooding.

[8] Finally, the Glan Valley Railway was opened over its entire length on 1 May 1904, including the newly built Homburg–Glan-Münchweiler, Altenglan–Lauterecken and Odernheim–Bad Münster am Stein sections.

[9] The new line provided a continuous connection from Homburg via Glan-Münchweiler, Altenglan, Lauterecken-Grumbach and Odernheim to Bad Münster am Stein.

Already from 9 to 16 August 1914, the Glan Valley Railway was used by several military trains daily from the Poznań (then German Posen) region to the west.

On 1 November 1917, the stations in Eschenau, Wiesweiler and Raumbach had to be temporarily abandoned due to lack of staff, but they had already been reactivated in October 1918.

[11] In the postwar period, the line was affected by damage as a result of the war, especially in the form of long travel times.

In 1920, the Glan Valley Railway between Homburg and Jägersburg became part of the newly created Saar, which was controlled by the United Kingdom and France for a period of 15 years as a League of Nations mandate.

Seven years later the German government agreed that only the Odernheim–Bad Münster section would be reduced to a single track and the Glan Valley Railway would still retain the status of a main line.

[13] In 1923 and 1924, so-called Regiebetrieb ("directed operation" of the railways by the Allied military during the Occupation of the Ruhr) was imposed under the control of France, which had occupied the Palatinate.

Therefore, reinforced German Post Office bus routes and private trucks were used as an alternative to the French-controlled railways.

Due to its strategic importance, the line was often the target of Allied air raids that destroyed, among other things, the engine shed in Lauterecken and Offenbach station.

In the last months of the war, a connecting curve was constructed between Rammelsbach and Bedesbach in the current location of Altenglan to the north of the station.

[16] Despite these attacks, the Glan Valley Railway in 1945 had suffered less damage than any other line between the Rhine and the Saarland, so it was used by many American military trains in 1945.

[18] The economic reintegration of the Saarland in Germany meant that customs controls in Schönenberg-Kübelberg were abolished in 1959, but starting in the 1950s, there continued to be further reductions in the capacity of the route.

In the following period the failure of DB to carry out additional rationalisation called into question the economics of the Glan Valley Railway because signalling and level crossing barriers still had to be operated manually and the safe-working systems still predominantly dated from the early days of the line.

The section from Bad Münster to the Niedernhausen power station was used for both freight operations and occasional special passenger trips until late 1990 when it was closed.

Students of the Kaiserslautern University of Technology proposed the establishment of a draisine operation on the Altenglan–Staudernhein section of the line to prevent its final closure and the dismantling of its track.

After an examination of the draisine lines in Templin in Brandenburg—at that time the only one in Germany—and near Magnières in Lorraine, detailed planning began, which was implemented in 2000.

Between Homburg and Glan-Munchweiler the line crosses the Glan river four times because of the large meanders in its upper reaches and one of its loops is shortened by the Elschbach tunnel.

In terms of landscape, most of the line from Schönenberg-Kübelberg to Odernheim runs through the North Palatine Uplands, where it has been dismantled between Waldmohr and Glan-Münchweiler.