The freight bypass railway run from Wunstorf via Seelze and the Hanoverian districts of Ahlem, Limmer, Linden, Waldhausen, Waldheim, Kirchrode and Misburg-Süd to Lehrte.

Previously freight trains to and from the Altenbeken line partly used the Bad Münder–Bad Nenndorf railway, which was subsequently abandoned in stages.

The most recent major development of the line was the reconstruction of the approaches from the east of Lehrte station in 2008 to enable the grade-separated entry and exit of freight trains to and from Wolfsburg, Brunswick and Hildesheim.

Trains running between the access routes from Hamburg via Celle and Verden and the exits via Hamelin and Altenbeken and on the North–South railway or in the opposite direction can use the line.

The line is also used by scheduled passenger trains that do not stop in Hannover Hauptbahnhof, such as the ICE Sprinter service on the Berlin–Frankfurt–South Germany route.

In 1990, when the increasingly noisy diesel class 132 locomotives built for Deutsche Reichsbahn began to be used, a citizens' initiative was launched to reduce noise on the line.