The section between Rosenbach and Jesenice through the Karawanks Tunnel is part of and international long-distance route between Salzburg and Zagreb.

[5] The pricing policy of the private Southern Railway Company, which had an effective monopoly on north–south traffic in Austria-Hungary, led the Imperial Council to make several attempts to authorise a second rail link to Trieste, all of which were unsuccessful.

[4] The ironworks in Waidisch, Unterloibl and Ferlach combined to form the Kärntner Eisen- und Stahlwerksgesellschaft (Carinthian Iron and Steel Works company; KESTAG).

In October 1931, the last scheduled express train ran through the Rosen Valley, in 1933 the Krainische Industriegesellschaft closed its Feistritz works as a result of the Great Depression.

[4] During the Second World War, arms production at the Jungfer battery factory, which opened in Feistritz in 1939, led to a temporary traffic increase.

[4] In the 1970s, the construction of the Ferlach reservoir led to initial considerations of closing the railway, because the bridge over the Drava would have been flooded at its planned capacity.

Buses have been running from Weizelsdorf to Ferlach and parallel to the Rosen Valley Railway to Rosenbach or Ledenitzen (connecting to the S2) since then.

On 9 December 2016, the last scheduled passenger train ran the entire length between Rosenbach via the Rosen Valley to Klagenfurt.

In August 2020, the section between Weizelsdorf and Feistritz was reopened for tourist trains of the Nostalgiebahnen in Kärnten (Nostalgia Railways of Carinthia; NBIK).

The stations between Klagenfurt and Weizelsdorf are Mössingerstraße and Maria Rain, where all but one of the tracks were made unusable in the course of the work to adapt it for the S-Bahn line.

In the area of Feistritz im Rosental station there are industrial plants that once required a connection to the rail network.

The overhead line electrified at 15 kV, 16.7 Hz extends from Rosenbach through the Karawanks tunnel to Jesenice station.

On 11 December 2016, at the 2016/2017 timetable change, all traffic between Rosenbach and Weizelsdorf was suspended, but the main tracks are to be retained for the time being.