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Here once stood a prominent half-timbered and brick station building, known as the OEG station.
OEG Station with the „Fiery Elias“, 1940 (Foto: Tiefburg Archives)
1890 saw the inauguration of a single-track steam tram service between Heidelberg and Weinheim. This was to bridge the gap along this stretch and to complement the normal Heidelberg-Mannheim and Mannheim-Weinheim railway service. In 1911, the steam tram operations were taken over by the Upper Rhine Railway Society, abbreviated OEG, with the aim of electrifying the route.
In 1929, the stretch between Heidelberg and Handschuhsheim was electrified and steam trams were banned from the center of Heidelberg. This meant that there had to be a change of engines in Handschuhsheim, and the steam tram continued to operate along the rest of the route until the 1950s. Its nickname was “Fiery Elias”. The prominent station building was replaced by a new one when the road scheme around Hans Thoma Square was reconstructed in 1958.
Since 2005 the RNV company is responsible for the tram service and on weekdays over 70 trams are in operation along the Heidelberg-Weinheim route at 10 to 30 minute intervals. (bm)