Lübeck-Büchen Railway Company

Although the line would have to run through Holstein-Glückstadt, which was ruled by the King of Denmark, Lindley decided not to submit an application to the Danish authorities for approval for this survey work prior to carrying it out in order to save time.

Only on this occasion, did he inform the King of Denmark of the survey work that had taken place; this upset the court and affected the simultaneous negotiations on the construction of the Hamburg–Lübeck highway.

A new start was made in 1843, when Lübeck Council decided that it would lead a project to build a railway to Hamburg and took the issue up with the Danish government.

After the Lübeck-Büchen Railway Company was established on 27 February 1850, work began on the construction of the line from Lübeck via Ratzeburg and Mölln to Büchen.

A labour force of 2,500 mostly unskilled workers were engaged on the line's earthworks for a total of 400,000 working days up to April 1851.

The felling of numerous street trees and the originally planned demolition of the Rehbock and Scheune bastions met resistance from Lübeck's population.

The Council and the Bürgerschaft (Lübeck's parliament) therefore decided that of the felled trees would be sold with their value going to a fund to be used by the Potsdam landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné to improve the remaining ramparts artistically.

With the opening of the branch line from Travemünde Hafen station to Niendorf (Ostsee) in 1913, the network of the LBE achieved its maximum length of 160.87 kilometres.

The LBE had already established a committee in 1850 with funds of 7,000 Prussian thalers to carry out technical tests on the building of a crossing over the Elbe near Lauenburg.

Numerous breakdowns due to icing in winter and several accidents, however, showed clearly that the ferry would provide no lasting solution.

With the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the military objections to a fixed Elbe crossing was removed.

It was finally decided to build a swing bridge, which was opened in 1878 after two years of construction, allowing through trains from Lübeck to Lüneburg.

On 1 July 1870, the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz Railway's Lübeck–Bad Kleinen line was opened to the LBE station in Lübeck, and in 1871 the first continuous services operated between Hamburg and Stettin (now Szczecin).

The Eutin-Lübeck Railway Company established a line to Eutin in 1873, completing a link between Lübeck and Kiel.