The line continues through the narrow valleys of the Kuhbach and the Itter (which requires two tunnels) to Herzhausen, past the beginning of the Edersee.

In Burgwald, the line crosses Rhine–Weser watershed via the Wiesenfeld Tunnel, reaching the valley of the Wetschaft at Ernsthausen.

With the 2013/2014 timetable change in December 2013, the new Twistesee crossing loop was opened east of Bad Arolsen (no embarkation/disembarkation), which enabled a new timetable concept to be introduced with coordinated transfers in Korbach and shorter travel times between Kassel and Korbach.

A Heckeneilzug ("hedge express", that it is a train that stops at all stations on the rural part of the route, but runs as an express at the city end; E 2832/2833) also ran on this route until around 1982 to/from Bremerhaven (for a time Hamburg-Altona) via Bielefeld, Brilon and Marburg to/from Frankfurt am Main.

Since no other railway lines branched off between Korbach and Frankenberg, most of the stations were outside the towns, the well-developed B 252 runs parallel and the region is only sparsely populated, passenger transport became less and less profitable.

In the years before the closure, for example, the first passenger train from Frankenberg to Korbach did not run until 10 AM, making the service useless for schoolchildren and commuters.

After the Korbach–Volkmarsen section was reactivated in 1998, plans began to be developed to use the Lower Eder Valley Railway again for passenger traffic to create a continuous connection to Marburg and the Frankfurt Rhine-Main area.

At that time, plans included the investment of €43 million to accelerate operations on the Cölbe–Korbach route to establish good connections to the Regional-Express to Frankfurt in Marburg and to the RE 17 to Hagen in Brilon Wald.

As a lead-up to the planned reactivation, excursion services were operated from Frankenberg to Herzhausen on Sundays and public holidays in 2006 and 2007, but this was not continued in the following years as a result of Waldeck-Frankenberg budget cuts.

With the new RE 57 service, Dortmund–Brilon, good connections to the Sauerland and the Ruhr area could be created in Brilon Wald without having to upgrade the line between Korbach and Cölbe for higher speeds.

[7] On 25 September 2008, the Landtag of Hesse decided, on the basis of an initiative by the Greens, to reactivate the Frankenberg–Korbach railway, which had not yet been dismantled, for regular rail traffic.

Five pairs of trains ran between Marburg and Herzhausen every two hours on Sundays and public holidays.

The section between Herzhausen and Korbach Süd remained closed to all traffic because of the heavy vegetation and its poor condition.

[9] On 29 September 2011, the local daily newspapers, the Frankenberger Zeitung and the Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine reported that the Waldeck-Frankenberg district was making €2.8 m available for the reopening of the section from Herzhausen to Korbach.

[10][11] In December 2011, the NVV announced that it would consider reactivating the section for passenger and freight traffic.

The two tunnels at Vöhl-Thalitter had to be completely renovated and eight level crossings protected with safety equipment.

It was originally planned to introduce new services at the 2014/2015 timetable change in December 2014 to allow trains to run over the line at a maximum speed of 60 km/h.

[17] Politicians and transport operators decided in March 2014 that a station allowing trains to cross would be built in Frankenberg-Viermünden at a later date.

Before the completion of the crossing station at Viermünden, most trains continued to Bestwig due to a lack of connections.

The passenger traffic consisted largely of travellers bound for Marburg, Korbach, Frankenberg or the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region.

Today, it is still served by occasional trains carrying timber from Frankenberg, Battenberg and a siding in Allendorf.

During this time, the line was converted to computer-based signalling and the Birkenbringhausen and Simtshausen stations were moved closer to the towns.

The renovation of the line to mark the 120th anniversary was celebrated with the Burgwaldbahnfest (Burgwald Railway Festival) on 23 and 24 October 2010.

However, the trains stop at nine because the section of line through the stations of Cölbe and Marburg (Lahn), which is also served, is no longer considered to form part of the Burgwald Railway.

Regional trains run every hour from Korbach via Bad Arolsen and Volkmarsen to Kassel.

Since the travel time between the junction at Korbach and Viermünden is too short for stable operation, services that are additional to the basic two-hour pattern have to omit the stops in Ederbringhausen, Schmittlotheim and Thalitter.

[27] Between Frankenberg (Eder) and Marburg (Lahn) there are hourly Regionalbahn services on weekdays, which cross in Münchhausen.

The services were originally to be operated by two low-floor multiple units, a used Stadler GTW (number 13) and a Siemens Desiro (14).