This standard gauge, single-track Lokalbahn ('local line') was 14.7 km long and was opened on 20 December 1890 by the Royal Bavarian State Railways.

The line ran in a northwesterly direction along the valley of the Fichtelnaab river up into the Fichtel Mountains.

Passing through Ebnath and Brand it reached its terminus, the climatic health resort of Fichtelberg at a height of 720 m above sea level, where, for centuries, there had been a mining industry.

During the early decades no more than three pairs of trains ran daily on workdays fuhren, in 1939 there were four and in 1957 even as many as eight.

As the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) increasingly withdrew itself from the area, services reduced from 1975 to just one train, which left in the morning during the week from Fichtelberg to Kirchenlaibach and returned from Schirnding in the evening.