Opening dates: The boundary between the jurisdiction of the Royal Bavarian State Railways and the Prussian state railways crossed the line shortly before the station at Marxgrün at kilometre post 68.24, calculated from the original start of the route in Triptis.

During the Second World War, the Triptis–Marxgrün railway was used as an alternative route for north–south traffic, because it was a long way from centres of population that were vulnerable to bombing raids.

After the occupation of Thuringia by the Red Army in June 1945 the Bavarian-Thuringian state border became the demarcation line between the American and Soviet-occupied zones in Germany.

The station of Blankenstein ended up in the out-of-bounds area immediately adjacent to the so-called Staatsgrenze West (i.e.

The German Regional Railway (Deutsche Regionaleisenbahn or DRE) has rented the closed section between Triptis and Ebersdorf-Friesau, initially until 31 December 2009[1] with the aim of preserving the trackbed.

[4] In the current 2007/2008 Deutsche Bahn timetable the line from Triptis to Bad Lobenstein is number KBS 556.

On the Bavarian side after the Second World War the only significant use of the line between Lichtenberg and Marxgrün was for local goods traffic.

The timber-framed station building in Hölle was to have been preserved and used as a guest house for visitors to the spa town.

I the former station of Lichtenberg there is an information centre for the Franconian Forest Nature Reserve, where a functioning model of the Höllentalbahn, in 1:87 (H0) scale, can be viewed.

In front of Lichtenberg station, on a short piece of track, an old industrial locomotive (Lok 3; Cfl; Babelsberg 1969/219189; FLC - 92061) from the Rosenthal Cellulose and Paper Factory (ZPR) in Blankenstein as well as several coaches and wagons recall the days of the train in the Hölle Valley.

The Rosenthal Cellulose and Paper Factory in Blankenstein has a major interest in closing the gap in the network in the direction of Bavaria.

[6] On 16 December 2008, the town of Naila demanded that the reactivation of the route between Marxgrün and Blankenstein be included in the regional plan for Upper Franconia-East (Oberfranken-Ost).