The class 86 standard locomotives were tank locomotives with a 2-8-2T wheel arrangement, which were developed for heavy service on branch lines. Starting in 1928, they were built a total of 775 times over a period of 15 years by all well-known German locomotive manufacturers.

From the beginning, many locomotives were used on difficult low mountain range routes that did not allow high axle loads. The four driving axles made it particularly suitable for these jobs, which is why some of them were fitted with a counter-pressure brake. The top speed was initially 70 km/h, but many later examples were fitted with better brakes and could be approved for 80 km/h. Since both carrying axles were integrated into Krauss-Helmholtz bogies, the running characteristics were equally good in both directions of travel.

During the Second World War, the class 86 belonged to the locomotives that were built as transitional war locomotives. In order to be able to save as many working hours and money as possible during production, production has been simplified. In addition to the use of welding technology, disc wheels were used on the carrying axles and some parts or instruments were left out, which did not limit the functionality of the locomotive. Due to the weight advantage achieved with this, the drilling out of some solid steel parts could be omitted, which saved additional working time.

After the war, the engines were distributed across many countries and, in addition, a large number of the locomotives had to be handed over to the Soviet occupation zone as reparations. After many locomotives came back to Germany from different countries, they continued to be used by both German railways on branch lines with difficult topography. The Bundesbahn retired their last one in 1974, the Reichsbahn used it on line service until 1976 and then it was occasionally used as a heating locomotive until 1988. Abroad, the Austrian Federal Railways, the Czechoslovak State Railways and the Polish State Railways were users who used the class 86 in large numbers for a long time.

The class 99³² was procured in 1932 for the “Molli” spa railway between Bad Doberan and Kühlungsborn with a gauge of 900 mm in order to cope with the increasing volume of traffic. The construction was based on the principles of standard locomotives in the relatively rare gauge of 900 mm. The locomotives are characterized by the fact that they are among the fastest narrow-gauge steam locomotives in Germany and the last of the four examples was only completed in 2009.

Like all standard locomotives, the 99³² was equipped with a superheated steam engine, while most narrow-gauge locomotives at that time still ran on saturated steam for the sake of simplicity. This increased efficiency and made the locomotive one of the most powerful on the narrow gauge. A difference to the standard locomotives was the plate frame instead of a bar frame. Since the area of operation was in the lowlands, the locomotives were designed for a speed of 50 km/h, even if the route only permitted 40 km/h. Even the class 99³³ locomotives, which were only procured in GDR times, could not surpass their tractive effort and were even slower.

The three engines originally built by Orenstein & Koppel have survived the times and are still in regular use today. Even of their successors from the fifties, only one example is still in use today, which is also used more for special trips. From the 1990s, they were modernized in several stages, and today some of the originally riveted assemblies are available in a welded version. These include new boilers and frames.

In order to increase the capacity of the route, the construction of another locomotive according to the original plans was started in 2008 at the Meiningen steam locomotive works. It received all the improvements that its sisters have had over the years and was able to start operating in 2009 as the first newly built steam locomotive in Germany for 50 years.

Since the conversion to computer numbers from 1970 onwards, the locomotives have been given numbers that, strictly speaking, no longer belong to the 99³² series. They were originally numbered 99 321 to 99 323 and then became 99 2321 to 99 2323. The engine from Meiningen was eventually given 99 2324.

In 1911, the PO ordered 2-8-2T tank locomotives from SLM in Switzerland for the transport of freight trains, but also passenger trains, on the steep lines in the Massif Central. They were based on a locomotive that had already been built for the Thunerseebahn in 1908. Further batches were supplied by French manufacturers and North British.

A special feature for locomotives with this wheel arrangement was the drive on the second coupled axle. In order to be able to run through small curve radii, the first and last driving axles were combined with the neighboring carrying axle to form a Zara bogie. This resulted in a fixed wheelbase of just 1,500 mm. The blastpipe consisted of a variable cone and a three-fold cloverleaf nozzle.

They were able to pull a 200-tonne train at 30 km/h on a 3.5 percent ramp. On the flat they reached their top speed of 70 km/h with up to 1,500 tonnes. The special shape of the coal bunker earned the locomotives the nickname “boat butt”.

Between 1924 and 1929, 31 locomotives were transferred to Morocco. The PO rebuilt all of its locomotives to a Kylchap exhaust system. Some later received Worthington feed water heaters, and most of them also had their boiler pressure increased to 13 bars. At the SNCF they were also used far away from the Massif Central and were designated 4-141 TA. The last machine was retired in May 1970.

In 1912, the decision was made to procure a modern steam locomotive to supplement the electric vehicles in the Berlin area, whereupon Henschel developed a machine with the designation T 14. Since the test operation showed that the additional effort for the three cylinders was not worth it, the Union Gießerei in Königsberg manufactured a machine with similar dimensions but only two cylinders in the following year, which was finally procured as the T 14 in series.

It was a tank locomotive with the wheel arrangement 2-8-2T, whose coupled wheels had a diameter of 1,350 mm and allowed a speed of 65 km/h. Due to an unfavorable weight distribution, the leading axle was more heavily loaded than the coupled axles with 17.3 tonnes. The third coupled axle, which served as the drive axle, only carried a load of 14.2 tonnes.

The Prussian State Railways procured a total of 457 T 14s between 1914 and 1918, and a few more were bought by the Reichseisenbahnen Alsace-Lorraine and private railways. When it was taken over by the Reichsbahn, there were still exactly 400 examples from Prussia that became the class 93^0-4. During the Second World War, some engines that had been handed over in 1918 as reparations came back to the Reichsbahn. After the war, the distribution between the two German states was about the same, and so 138 pieces came to the Federal Republic of Germany to the Bundesbahn and 160 to the GDR to the Reichsbahn. While the last ones were retired in the west as early as 1960, some units in the east were even given a computer number with class number 093 until they were retired in 1972.

The T 14¹ was developed from the T 14 in order to eliminate the greatest weaknesses of this basically well-designed tank locomotive. It was built in larger numbers than its predecessor and after the founding of the Reichsbahn it was also procured by the Prussian directorates. In addition, the Württemberg State Railways put a larger number of these engines into service as T 14 to replace locomotives lost in World War I. Its power was sufficient to tow 700 tonnes on the flat at a maximum speed of 65 km/h. 530 tonnes could still be towed at 30 km/h on a gradient of ine percent.

The biggest point of criticism of the T 14 was the high axle load of the leading axle, on the basis of which one wanted to distribute the load further to the rear. Since the range was also considered to be in need of improvement, the supplies were increased. However, adding a few tonnes of weight behind the cab had the opposite effect, as 19.1 tonnes now weighed on the rear axle. Since this was not justifiable for operation on secondary routes, the water box below the coal box was not used in operation and the axle load was thus reduced to 17.4 tonnes.

Production began in 1918 directly with the discontinuation of production of the T 14, but further examples were also made by nine other manufacturers. Including the 39 engines from Württemberg, 768 examples were built before production stopped in 1924. Shortly thereafter, the renumbering followed, in which all engines were given a uniform number range from 93 501 to 93 1261. In service with the two German states in the post-war period, the locomotives on both sides were given computer compatible numbers, but the Bundesbahn retired them in the same year, i.e. in 1968. The last examples were used by the Reichsbahn for another four years.

In order to get a more powerful successor for the large number of existing branch line tank locomotives, the class 423.0 was developed by the First Bohemian-Moravian Machine Works (PCM) and also manufactured by other companies. In order to achieve the greatest possible power, the choice fell on the 2-8-2T wheel arrangement. Later they also formed the basis for the 433.0 series.

A lot of attention was paid to the running gear in order to achieve sufficient running characteristics on branch lines despite the six axles. While the two carrying axles were designed as Adams axles, the third coupled axle, which served as the driving axle, was equipped with weakened wheel flanges and the first coupled axle could be shifted by 21 mm to each side. A water purifier was installed to take account of the often polluted boiler feed water on branch lines. This was cylindrical and, together with the steam dome and the sandbox, lay under a panel on the boiler barrel. 

A total of 231 units were manufactured until 1946. With an indicated output of more than 750 hp, the engines were also called “Velký Býcek” or “Big Bull”. Some engines in the Sudetenland came under the control of the Deutsche Reichsbahn from 1938 and were listed as the class 93¹⁵ at this time. During the Second World War they all came back to the CSD area. They were in service until the late 1970s and it was not until 1980 that the last two examples were retired. Five examples survive today, three of which are in working order.