Electric tram Heidelberg – Wiesloch

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The Heidelberg – Wiesloch electric tram formed a tram company between 1901 and 1973 , with its headquarters in Leimen .

history

The towns of Rohrbach , Leimen , Nussloch and Wiesloch , south of Heidelberg , were striving for better transport connections at the end of the 19th century, as the Rhine Valley Railway , which opened in 1840, had passed the towns for a long time. The first license requests were made in 1886. The final approval was given in 1900 by the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . On their behalf, the AG for Railway Construction and Operation built a 13 km long tram from Heidelberg to Wiesloch, which opened on July 23, 1901. This was electrified from the start, making it the first electric tram line in Heidelberg.

In addition to passenger traffic , the railway was able to make good profits by transporting stones from the quarry in Nussloch to the cement works in Leimen. This ended on June 30, 1918, when the Leimen – Nussloch material ropeway was built for this task .

In 1905 the railway was sold by the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft to the city of Heidelberg, which leased it to the Heidelberger Straßen- und Bergbahn (HSB) as operator. The city built another branch line from Rohrbach to Kirchheim (1.7 km), which started operating on February 19, 1910.

In 1923, HSB acquired the suburban railway from the city of Heidelberg and paid the purchase price with shares. This ended the independence of the Heidelberg – Wiesloch railway, as it was now fully integrated into the HSB.

Due to the increasing amount of car traffic and the poor financial situation of HSB, considerations arose in the 1970s to shut down tram routes. On September 30, 1972, operations from Rohrbach to Kirchheim and on June 16, 1973 between Leimen and Wiesloch were closed. Since then, bus routes have been running between the named places as a substitute. The connection between Heidelberg and Leimen has since been ensured by tram line 23 of the RNV .

Present and Future

The new tram route from Heidelberg center to Kirchheim has been in operation since 2006. There are also talks to reactivate the disused section south of Leimen and even let the line run to Wiesloch-Walldorf station. However, due to the currently poor financial situation of the municipalities, the project cannot be implemented in the medium term.

See also

literature

  • Klaus Rothenhöfer: No space on the street . In: Tageblatt . July 1971 ( rothenhoefer-wiesloch.de [accessed on October 15, 2012]).
  • Klaus Rothenhöfer: End of work for tram line 8 . In: Tageblatt . 1973 ( rothenhoefer-wiesloch.de [accessed October 15, 2012]).
  • Klaus Rothenhöfer: Car from line 8 - white-blue rattling drove through the city ... In: Tageblatt . July 24, 1976 ( rothenhoefer-wiesloch.de [accessed October 15, 2012]).