on 1 august 1882 the lbe opened a line from lübeck to travemünde. on 1 july 1898 the line opened from travemünde—now called lübeck-travemünde hafen (port)—to lübeck-travemünde strand (beach). in 1902 took the lbe opened a connection for freight from wandsbek via hamburg-rothenburgsort to the berlin-hamburg line, the origin of the modern hamburg freight bypass. with the opening of the branch line from travemünde hafen station to niendorf (ostsee) in 1913, the network of the lbe achieved its maximum length of 160.87 kilometres.