The railway lines that it replaced followed the terrain and followed rivers and valleys, resulting in steep gradients and sharp curves and thus not suitable for high-speed trains.

The 1973 federal transport plan incorporated the following minimum requirements for mixed traffic to accommodate heavy, slow goods trains and light fast passenger trains: To fulfill these requirements, it was necessary to build a large number of structures such as bridges and tunnels.

The Freudenstein Tunnel is through the porous rock strata, which flows as a result of heavy rains on the hillsides above it.

In seven places the protests of the nearby residents led to the building of cut and cover tunnels.

Before the commencement of passenger operations two thousand training runs were undertaken to familiarise drivers with the technical characteristics of driving on high-speed lines, such as in-cab signalling and preventing the application of the emergency brakes.

The opening of the line reduced the travel time from Mannheim to Stuttgart from 90 to 44 minutes in 1991.