the line runs the south-west from lübeck through mostly agricultural, undulating land. the trave river is crossed three times. the most important intermediate stop is bad oldesloe, where the line connects with hourly services on the line to bad segeberg and neumünster, operated by nordbahn. between ahrensburg and hamburg-rahlstedt the line runs along the stellmoor tunnel valley. in the city of hamburg the line crosses the rail freight bypass and then runs parallel to the s-bahn line until hamburg hauptbahnhof is reached from the east.