It was built for the Royal Bavarian State Railways as part of the east-west connection between Neu-Ulm in the west via Augsburg, Munich and Rosenheim to the Austrian border at Kufstein and Salzburg in the east.

It promised good traffic flows to and from the Austrian Adriatic port at Trieste.

The line connected to the Württemberg Southern Railway in Ulm and ran for 84 kilometers to Augsburg.

Every hour or two Intercity-Express and InterCity trains run from Munich via Augsburg and Ulm to Stuttgart and from there to various other destinations.

Eventually this line should be part of the Magistrale for Europe from Paris via Strasbourg, Stuttgart and Ulm to Munich, Salzburg and Vienna.