However it concluded that the construction of a route from Pfeffenhausen to Eggmühl would not have met the transportation interests of the upper Laaber Valley, which was aligned with the county capital of Landshut.

It was promised that this would deliver advantages, especially for local farmers, not just for the growing of cereals and farming of cattle but also for hop cultivation in the Hallertau.

The greatest inclines were the ramp at Arth (20‰), the watershed between Pfettrach and Laber (23‰) and the high ridge of Pfeffenhausen in the direction of Rottenburg (25‰).

Between Landshut and Pfeffenhausen a route was selected that was about one kilometre shorter than originally planned, which meant that only 170,000 m³ of earth needed to be moved.

On 29 October 1900 the first trial run took place with a Bavarian D VII steam engine in charge and on 3 November the route was opened in festive style with four special trains being laid on.

The Rottenburger Bockerl was a typical Bavarian Lokalbahn, running past large fields of grain and hops as well as farmyards and mills.

Its services included many GmP mixed trains, which had long journey times due to the need to shunt wagons at stations en route.

The Zornhof mountain was notorious: leaf fall in the autumn or snow in winter meant that, sometimes, the locomotive in charge of heavily loaded trains would get stuck with its wheels spinning.

After the timetable change in 1955 the majority of the steam engines disappeared from the line, just one remained for hauling school trains, usually the GtL 4/5, no.

Since the early 1990s locomotives of classes 365 and 335 have run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (request only) to Rottenburg for shunting duties.

Since 15 September 2000 the remaining section of the line has been rented from its owner, DB Netz, to the Landshut-Rottenburg Steam Train Society (infrastructure company: BayernBahn), which hopes to run a museum railway on it.

In the area of the level crossing over the B 299 at Oberndorf near Weihmichl the track and trackbed had been fully replaced by the end of 2007 over a length of 50 m, after a large quantity of diesel fuel had leaked into the soil following an accident with a lorry tanker on 14 September 2006.

[1][2] The county of Landshut and the village of Altdorf are sceptical about the museum project: The council and mayor have repeated several times "that it is their aim to get rid of the railway and built a footpath and cycle way on the trackbed".