We describe the design of the secondary pion beam-line installed at the SIS 18Tm synchrotron at GSI, Darmstadt, and discuss the commissioning results. The experiments were performed with proton and 1 2 C primary beams at several energies using beryllium production targets. Pion yields in a momentum range between 0.4 and 2.8GeV/c were identified. At the highest primary beam energies of 3.5GeV for proton and 2.0AGeV for carbon ions, the latter beam produces the highest low-momentum pion yield while at momenta of 1.5GeV/c the yields are comparable and at 2.8GeV/c the proton beam is superior. A momentum resolution of around 0.5% is achieved and the time resolution (σ) ranges from 100 to 150ps, for bombarding rates up to 1.5MHz.