During the winter of 1912/13, work had to be halted for several months, which meant that laying the track and the rack rail only started in April 1913.

[3] Initially, five pairs of trains were timetabled daily, each with a journey time of about 15 minutes (at a top speed of 8 km/h).

[citation needed] In the 1920s, only two pairs of trains ran daily due to the effects of the First World War, a lack of coal and declining goods and passenger traffic.

But neither the acquisition of a modern diesel rack railway locomotive, which could run through from Scharzfeld to St. Andreasberg, nor the electrification of the line could be carried out due to cost.

Dr. Paul Schöning, head of the Braunschweig mechanical engineering department (Maschinenamtes Braunschweig), drove a railbus without any authority or permission, on the inclined part of the route on 18 September 1957 and determined that the railbus could manage the gradient running uphill but would have had to be fitted with additional brakes for the downhill run, but they were never employed in service.

[1][3] In 1955, the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Economy and Transport warmed that operations on the St. Andreasberg rack railway were very unprofitable.

[3] A serious accident on the Drachenfels Railway in September 1958, which killed 18 and injured 100 people, was cited, at a business meeting on 28 November 1958, in announcing the closure of the line in St.

[citation needed] Rail services ceased on 1 January 1959 after 46 years of operations, although a final passenger train worked the line on 23 April 1959.

The railway also owned a single four-wheel open wagon used for transport of goods and, in winter, skis.