On 1 July 1854, the Schweinfurt–Würzburg line was opened as a section of the Ludwig Western Railway and it was extended to Aschaffenburg in the same year.

Freight traffic has never lost its importance on the Wern Valley Railway, which is still busy as a bypass of the Würzburg node.

For this reason it was electrified in 1971 along with the Bamberg–Waigolshausen railway (the Waigolshausen–Rottendorf line was converted to electric operations in the summer 1972 timetable) and it was extensively renovated and modernised from 2002.

Meanwhile, there are also efforts to restore passenger services, so, for example, a train for cyclists runs from Aschaffenburg to Bamberg in the summer on weekends on the Wern Valley Railway, but without stopping on it.

From Eußenheim the line must cross the Wern several times before it meets with the Main–Spessart railway from Würzburg at Wernfeld, which it does not merge with, but instead runs parallel with it until Gemünden.