This industry relied mostly on imported raw materials, but the finished shoes were mostly for the domestic market.

In October 1869 A.H. Verster, a judge from Boxtel requested a concession to construct a railroad from 's-Hertogenbosch to Vlijmen, Nieuwkuijk, Drunen, Waalwijk, Besoijen, Waspik, Oosterhout, Wagenberg en Zwaluwe to Zevenbergen.

The idea was for the line to become part of a connection from Brouwershaven (at the time a transloading harbor for Rotterdam) to Boxtel, where the Boxtel-Wesel railway was under construction.

The Ministry of Defense ordered Verster to keep 2 km clear of the Waalwijk Meuse dyke, so the line was then planned through the Boschveld, a low area seasonally flooded by the Bokhovensche Overlaat (Bokhoven overflow), an overflow in the dyke near Bokhoven.

From there, the line would reach Vlijmen, Nieuwkuijk, Drunen, and the Baardwijksche Overlaat (Baardwijk overflow).

The appeal reasoned that these routes would enable a more reliable means of transport as the Baardwijksche Overlaat and the Boschveld usually flooded each year and ice would block the river.

The eastern part of the route was planned to run between Waalwijk and Sprang to Giersbergen, Cromvoirt and then Vught,[12] different from what was anticipated by the locals.

[13] By February 1877 the engineers were busy projecting a route along the line Drunen, Nieuwkuijk, Vlijmen.

[14] In February 1878 the government announced an extension of the railway north of Oude Maasje (Bergsche Maas had yet to exist) from Zwaluwe to Heusden and Vlijmen, bypassing the Baardwijk Overflow and the center of the Langstraat.

By March 1879, the proposed route had changed again, from Geertruidenberg to Waalwijk to Heusden, and to connect to 's-Hertogenbosch north of the city's railway station.

The latter ran from Tilburg via Loon op Zand Sprang, and Besoijen to the harbor of Waalwijk.

[21] In December 1885 the stretch Zwaluwe-Geertruidenberg had not yet been planned to be used by the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen.

[26] In April 1886 construction of the section from Baardwijk to Vlijmen was tendered, and in June 1886 works on that stretch started.

A first version of the plan for this section had been proposed by the government in October 1883, but had been rejected due to the high cost of 3,000,000 guilders.

'S-Hertogenbosch wanted to do this, because the grounds west of the city center were the only ones that could be made suitable for building at reasonable cost.

[29] This engineering problem was explained in February 1887 on account of the expropriation law for the railway from Cromvoirt!

[30] Things then could have become much worse when a committee from the House of Representatives said that the stretch could be made much cheaply once the Bergse Maas was finished, because the railway would then no longer have to be on high dykes.

It also desired that Waalwijk would be officially upgraded to a first class station, where fast trains would stop.

In 1907 the Waalwijk Chamber of Commerce asked for a train from 's-Hertogenbosch later in the evening, so these representatives could still get home after visiting customers in Limburg and Germany.

Even before the end of the war there were rumors that the national railway wanted to close down the Langstraatspporlijn.

When confronted with these rumors, it stated that it was only thinking about using parts of its bridges for emergency repairs on other lines.

Even though it was more expensive, the bus was often more popular, because it stopped inside the villages, and most people travelled only very short distances.

An alternative would be to replace it by busses for local traffic, and to elecitrify the line for the longer distances.

[41] The fact that the railway used old steam equipment on the line, instead of diesel trains was probably also significant in the decline.

When the National Railways announced in March 1950 that it might stop passenger transport, there were local protests.

The North Brabant province then offered to buy the railroad, so it could cheaply construct a way for road traffic.

Given its interest in building a cheap road, the province enthusiastically supported the plan to eliminate the freight trains.

East of Waalwijk / Baardwijk, the railway was constructed through a flood plain called Baardwijksche Overlaat.

The Baardwijk Railroad Bridge (Spoorbrug over de Baardwijksche Overlaat) was the longest with a length of 885 m.[45] Most of it has since been destroyed.

In comparison with other Dutch tracks there are a lot of railway related buildings near the railroad.