From the beginning, the line was of great importance for international long-distance traffic between Munich and Switzerland and was duplicated along its entire length from 1899 to 1906.

[3] The line from Munich to Memmingen via Buchloe was listed as one of 19 proposed railways in a bill that the Ministry of Trade and Public Works submitted to the Chamber of Deputies of the Bavarian Parliament on 28 January 1868.

From 1869, there were plans to extend the line from Memmingen through Württemberg to Hergatz to create a shorter alternative to the Ludwig South-North railway.

With the approval of the headquarters of the Transport Authority, the town drew up its own plan for a route from Pasing via Stegen on the Ammersee and Landsberg to Buchloe.

Instead, it planned a route further north via Bruck (now Fürstenfeldbruck) and Grafrath with a Lech crossing near Kaufering, which it considered to be considerably cheaper due to a 13 metre reduction in the difference of heights.

However, the town of Landsberg continued to call for a crossing of the Lech near Sandau and offered to cover part of the costs for this route.

[8] Between December 1869 and February 1870, the Transport Authority divided the construction of the line into three sections based on Bruck, Landsberg and Buchloe.

[16] When it opened, the Munich–Buchloe main line had six stations in Pasing, Bruck, Grafrath, Türkenfeld, Kaufering and Buchloe and four Haltstellen (halts) in Aubing, Schwabhausen, Epfenhausen and Igling.

Together with the Buchloe–Lindau line, it was part of the fastest route between Munich and Switzerland and was therefore used by international long-distance passenger and freight trains from its opening.

With the opening of the Arlberg Railway from Innsbruck to Bludenz in 1884, the Munich–Buchloe line lost international freight traffic between Austria and Switzerland.

[18] The Bavarian State Railways introduced suburban services between Munich and Bruck (Fürstenfeldbruck since 1908) on 1 May 1896, which were used to transport schoolchildren and commuters to the city.

[26] It was not until the winter of 1945/46 that Deutsche Reichsbahn was able to resume continuous train operations between Munich and Buchloe, initially on a single track.

In addition, Deutsche Bundesbahn replaced the mechanical signal box along the section by push-button relay interlockings and equipped the future S-Bahn stations with new 76 cm high and 210 m long platforms.

[32] Deutsche Bahn lowered the tracks under five road bridges at Schwabhausen, Kaufering and Igling to make room for the overhead line.

[36] DB Netz is planning to build a third track between Munich-Pasing and Eichenau to increase the line capacity in the Munich area.

[37] A four-track upgrade between Eichenau and Pasing is assumed as part of the third expert draft of the proposed German regular-interval integrated timetable.

After Eichenau, it turns to the southwest at Gutshof Roggenstein and meets the course of the Munich North Ring, which branched off the Munich–Buchloe line at Steinwerk junction at line-kilometre 20.1 from 1939 to 1949.

It crosses the Amper and then runs straight again and steadily rises to the southwest through the Fürstenfeldbruck district of Buchenau and an extensive area of forest to Grafrath.

After Grafrath station, at km 32.3, the line runs through several long curves to the north past Ampermoos and Kottgeisering and crosses the watershed between Amper and Lech at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level in the Türkenfeld district.

The line runs south through a two-kilometer-long and up to 15 metre deep cutting past Altkaufering and across the Lech on a 114 metre-long bridge.

It runs over an embankment on the southern edge of Neukaufering to Kaufering station at kilometre 56.2, where the lines to Landsberg and to Bobingen branch off.

The line climbs steadily to the north, past the Welfen barracks, and passes the village of Igling to the south and crosses the Singold.

Running in a straight line over several railway embankments to the southwest, it reaches its highest point on the watershed between the Singold and Wertach at 621 metres above sea level.

[42][12] The Trans Europ Express (TEE) Bavaria service was established for the 1969/70 winter timetable on the route between Munich and Zürich.

Following the electrification of the Geltendorf–Buchloe section, six pairs of EuroCity-Express (ECE) services have run daily on the line between Munich and Zurich since 13 December 2020.

Bayerische Regiobahn (BRB) operates the Regionalbahn service RB 68 from Munich to Füssen, which also stops in Geltendorf and Kaufering.