On 12 September 1840 the original terminal station was opened in Heidelberg at the end of the first section of the Baden Mainline from Mannheim Hauptbahnhof.

[6] The main building was built on the side towards the city from red Neckar sandstone and it was covered with a contrasting slate roof.

In addition, there were two mixed gauge tracks connecting to a roundhouse and via a transfer table to a carriage shed.

[10] At the beginning of the 20th century the development of Bergheim to the north of the station and modern Weststadt to the south of it prevented the extension of railway precinct.

With increased road traffic following the construction of the Odenwald Railway in 1862, the level crossing of Rohrbacher Straße in the modern Adenauerplatz, in particular, proved to be annoying.

In 1901, the Heidelberg citizens' committee approved a proposal of the Baden State Railways to build a new through station a good kilometre west of the old site.

In October 1910, after 15 months of digging, the nearly 2,500 metres long Königstuhl tunnel was completed, connecting the Odenwald Railway to the new rail infrastructure.

At that time, the freight trains from the Odenwald Railway ran through the Königstuhl tunnel, somewhat reducing the stress on level crossings in the Heidelberg region.

In 1933, the railway division decided it was unable to finance the continued construction of the station for the foreseeable future.

[17] In the Nazi period, Carl Neinhaus, Mayor of Heidelberg from 1929 to 1945, was the "key figure"[18] in the planning of the relocation of the station.

Neinhaus aimed at a comprehensive redesign of the city centre, requiring the clearing of railway property.

In 1936, the city council instructed the architect Paul Bonatz to produce designs, and two years later he was joined by German Bestelmeyer, Hans Freese and Konstanty Gutschow.

As a result of the assistance of Speer, Hitler signed a decree in May 1941 under which Heidelberg received the status of a so-called redesigned city (Neugestaltungsstadt).

[21] The first sod was turned again on 12 September 1950, starting the first major construction project of Deutsche Bundesbahn, which was founded in 1949, when the cutting, which had been largely unused since 1914, was deepened by 50 centimetres to make more space for the planned electrification.

[23] 18 long-distance services stopped at Heidelberg in the new timetable; these had previously bypassed the city because of the congestion at the old station.

The ticket hall was built with glazed longitudinal walls at an angle of 50 degrees to the tracks, as designed by Hans Freese during the Nazi period.

Here, the modernity of the glass facade stands in contrast to the vertical structure of the reception hall façade with its relatively strong, neo-classical concrete roof supports, according to a publication of the State Historical Monuments Office (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege) of Baden-Württemberg in 2010.

[36] The abandonment of the carriage of mail by rail in July 1997 led to closure of the railway post office, which was located south of Montpellier bridge, near the station.

[37] Construction started in 2010 on the new district of Bahnstadt (railway town) on the grounds of the former freight yard and the operations depot.

Carl Neinhaus, who had been removed in 1945 by the American authorities during denazification, was re-elected mayor of Heidelberg in 1952 and expressed the hope in 1955 that the new link road would become a lively street with shops in a relatively short time and that it would emerge a "calling card of the city”.

In the early 1960s, the Menglerbau tower block was built on the site of the former station and it is still the only residential high-rise in Heidelberg.

In 1990, the Berufsgenossenschaft Chemie (chemical trades association) building was established in the new station forecourt, now named after Willy Brandt.

Since May 1993, the tram station lies to the immediate north of the entrance building; this is also served by the interurban trains of the Oberrheinischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (Upper Rhine Railway Company, OEG).

[36] The Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung newspaper stated in 1995 that the station “lies a little too far off, out in the west” (nach wie vor etwas abseits‚ draußen im Westen), without the expected strong pull.

The anticipated integration of the districts of Bergheim and Weststadt on the Kurfürstenanlage had failed according to the Heidelberg local newspaper.

[43] The station serves the major economic centre and popular tourist town of Heidelberg and is part of Deutsche Bahn's long-distance network.

An intercity coach service is also provided, where different companies such as Flixbus and Deinbus connect Heidelberg with several national and international destinations.