The railway was only a secondary line. It does not lead to the major nearby city of Hanover and, until 1960, the old Brunswick station, which was built as a terminus, inhibited through traffic. From 1945, the Inner German border blocked most traffic to the east of Brunswick. With the construction of the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed line and the Hildesheim loop built to connect it to Hildesheim and Brunswick from the south, InterCity trains began to run from Frankfurt via Göttingen, Hildesheim, Brunswick and Magdeburg to Berlin in 1991. These were replaced by Intercity-Express trains in 1993 and since 1998 they have taken the route east of Brunswick via the Weddel loop and Hanover–Berlin high-speed line.