Like the transition from two to three coupled axles that at first took place with freight locomotives, then with locomotives for heavy passenger service and finally with express locomotives, it was the same with the introduction of designs with four coupled axles. The first railways to order considerable numbers of 0-8-0 locomotives were situated around the Alps. As early as in the 1860s, Austrian operators started to rebuild 0-6-4T Engerth tank locomotives into 0-8-0 tender locomotives. In the 1870s, they started to order new 0-8-0 locomotives which were used for all kinds of trains.

Elsewhere, eight-coupled locomotives without carrying axles had problems to establish themselves for line service. But in the 1870s, American railroads started to order more and more eight-coupled freight locomotives with a leading axle, what became the 2-8-0 “Consolidation”. These soon became the standard for heavy freight service, with around 35,000 built by North American builders for domestic and foreign customers. More followed from builders in other countries. Additionally, the 0-8-0 started to be used for heavy switching.

Initially, locomotives with four coupled axles were not very well suited for higher speeds and sharp curves since they had a long rigid wheelbase. Over time, advances like flangeless drivers, axles with lateral play and Krauss-Helmholtz bogies also remedied these problems. So the development of the eight-coupled locomotives basically repeated that of the six-coupled ones, with the introduction of heavier and faster designs with leading and finally also trailing axles. This ultimately led to very powerful locomotives as 2-8-2 “Mikado”, 4-8-2 “Mountain”, 2-8-4 “Berkshire” and 4-8-4 “Northern”.

Some tasks not only required locomotives with four coupled axles, but five or even more. Locomotives with five coupled axles in one frame reached larger numbers, for example as 0-10-0 or 2-10-0 designs in Europe. While the Germans built many thousands of 2-10-0 freight locomotives in World War II, the Austrians had even built dedicated 2-10-0 express locomotives for service in the Alps which had no problems negotiating curves. In the USA, 2-10-2 and 2-10-4 were built to haul heavy freight trains, some of which exceeded 10,000 tons.

The largest rigid-frame locomotives often faced competition from articulated designs. In the earlier stages, many railroads bought Mallets with two groups of three driving axles each which were more powerful and flexible than designs with five driving axles. As development progressed, more modern rigid-frame locomotives could gain the lead again over articulated ones, with their biggest advantage being the less complex design. Meanwhile, some locomotives with six or seven driving axles in a single frame were built in several countries. The only successful tender designs were the Union Pacific class 9000 and the Württemberg K. But both of these operators later turned to other types and the other twelve- or fourteen-coupled designs were only built once.