The line is at a major part of the rail freight network of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB).

It was intended to increase the capacity of the line and to reduce the noise created by freight trains on the city of Innsbruck.

[1] The Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Railways) built a local bypass of Innsbruck station during World War II in 1944, which was demolished in 1945.

After the track-laying, the wiring of the overhead electrical line and the installation of signalling in the tunnel, operations started on 29 May 1994.

It was built to enable the easy installation of the turnouts and overhead electrification to connect the lines of the base tunnel and the bypass.

After a short distance in the open air, the bypass line joins the Brenner railway from Innsbruck at the 79.646 km (49.490 mi) mark from the German border at Kufstein.

The junction is equipped with eight sets of points and designed so that freight trains can run on and off the branch in both directions simultaneously without slowing down.

Since the bypass joins the Brenner Railway, which has slopes of up to 2.9%, virtually all goods trains need a bank engine, attached to the front.