Construction started in 1921 as part of a move to support this depressed area and it was taken into service on 3 September 1928.

There were also important opponents of the extension, und so the construction of the line from Bodenmais to Kötzting was cancelled in the early 1930s on the grounds that the local communities were unable to agree on it.

On 27 September 1984 the Nuremberg railway division admitted that it had been trying for 15 years to reach a decision over the future over the very poorly utilised Zwiesel–Bodenmais route.

The line from Zwiesel to Bodenmais has three request stops: at Aussenried, Langdorf and Böhmhof.

From 1993 the Regentalbahn ran this route under contract from the DB with their old Esslingen railbuses, since 1996 these run every hour.