The Prussian government had granted a concession for the line on 26 June 1872.

The purpose of the line was to serve the then already strong tourist traffic from Frankfurt to the Anterior Taunus (Vordertaunus, the now suburbanised foothills of the Taunus near Frankfurt).

Soon, direct trains began running from Frankfurt to Kronberg.

German Federal Railways established a regular interval timetable in 1954, with services every 30 minutes on the line (as well as on the Homburg line), long before the opening of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn.

This was expanded in late 1990 and incorporated into normal operations in 1999 under the name Kronberg Süd.