The second section from Greiz to Plauen lower station Plauen unterer Bahnhof was opened on 8 September and the last section was opened to Weischlitz on 20 September of the same year, where it connected with the Plauen—Cheb railway. The new line required an elaborate new bridge over the White Elster and its floodplains at Liebschwitz.
The so-called "lower railway" untere Bahn was designed for the implementation of two-track operation throughout tunnels, bridge abutments. In the autumn of , it was possible to resume continuous train operations after the removal of the rubble. There were also some long-distance rail passenger services to Czechoslovakia , since until the s, the more easterly "upper railway" via Werdau and Reichenbach was partly only single-track due to the dismantling in the post war period and was therefore overloaded.
Analogous to this was the use of the parallel Werdau—Mehltheuer railway as a relief route, but for connections to southern Germany. After the Reichenbach— Plauen line was restored to two tracks throughout, the utilisation of the lower railway also decreased. At the beginning of the s, the operation of the Ex 68 Karola once again provided a high-quality long-distance connection in the form of diesel multiple units. This was made possible by the conversion from of the locomotive-hauled Vindobona trains from class VT Typically class later class locomotives were used in passenger traffic and class later class locomotives were used in freight traffic.
After German Reunification in , the importance of the route decreased. The branching Greiz—Neumark line was closed and dismantled in Passenger services have been operated jointly by Vogtlandbahn and Deutsche Bahn since 9 December Vogtlandbahn operates services between Weischlitz and Gera , while Deutsche Bahn operates on the Elsterberg —Gera section.
There is a two-hourly cycle along the entire route with trains crossing in Elsterberg on the hour, while between Greiz and Gera trains run hourly, with trains crossing in Berga just before the half hour.
