After the opening of the Zwiesel–Grafenau railway in 1890, new possibilities arose for the transportation of logs by rail from the woods around the Großer Rachel, one of the highest hills in the Bavarian Forest.
At the suggestion of the senior forestry commission officer, Leythäuser, who was elected in 1890 to the government of the province of Lower Bavaria, forestry staff began to lay a 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) narrow gauge railway from the state railway station at Spiegelau in 1900 under their own steam.
After the hurricane devastation of 1927, work intensified and a line was built to the forest railway terminus at Finsterau.
In the early 1930s the Spiegelau Forest Railway reached its greatest extent with 95 kilometres of permanent way.
The last extension of the railway network was as late as 1951 with the construction of a 7 km long stretch to the Scheerhütte by 156 emergency workers.
In 1953 the highest point in the network was finally reached at just under 1,000 metres, opening up a 700 hectare area of the forest.
As well as logs the railway also carried part-load goods, especially food, to the remote villages of Guglöd, Waldhäuser und the Graupsäge.
It is however a completely new line, which was built alongside the former Forest Railway trackbed in the village centre.