Even before the Industrial Revolution really got going in Germany, there were considerations as to how the transport of goods of all kinds could be accelerated. The mines, in particular, achieved ever higher production rates through the use of new technologies such as the steam engine, which also made significantly higher transport capacities necessary.
When finally in 1825 the first railway in the modern sense ran in England, there were also plans for similar railways in several German states, even if these were initially drawn by horses. As early as 1833, Friedrich List published plans for a contiguous network that would connect most of the major cities in Germany.
Finally, in 1835, the first railway with a locomotive ran on German soil. The Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was founded especially for this purpose, which eventually built a 6 km long line between the Franconian cities of Nuremberg and Fürth. The “Adler” locomotive used was supplied by English railway pioneer Stephenson and initially shared the tracks with horses. Together with the locomotive technology, the English rail system with a gauge of 1,435 mm was also used, which is now internationally referred to as “standard gauge” and is used in large parts of the world.
Plan for a country-wide railroad system by Friedrich List from the year 1833.
Robert Krause 
This line was followed by others, the length of which was initially in the low double-digit kilometer range and which were built and operated by private companies. In the early days, there were only passenger cars “for pleasure” and not so much to get from A to B. Since the public was not yet familiar with the new-fashioned means of transport, many people were afraid of the high speeds or the exposure to smoke from the locomotives.
The railway made its breakthrough with the line from Leipzig to Dresden, which was built between 1837 and 1839 and, with a length of 120 km, was the first long-distance railway in Germany. The Saxonia, the first locomotive to be developed and built in Germany, was also used on it.
In the period that followed, other long-distance lines were established at various locations, but these were mostly operated by a special company and were often not connected to one another, despite the fact that the terminal stations were close together. This soon changed, however, as the rapidly growing networks gradually grew together. First there were links within the German states, then between the states and finally in the 1850s there were links abroad.
The prussian standard locomotives like this G 81 have been procured in large Numbers by multiple divisions, in this case more than 5,000 times.
Hugh Llewelyn 
When the states observed this development, the desire quickly arose for greater influence on further expansion. Above all, it was hoped that the development of a coherent network would be better coordinated and that individual railway companies would be better protected against financial risks.
As a result, some states founded their own state railways very early on, which either built new routes themselves from the start or gradually bought up private railways. Baden made the beginning of this development and already in 1838 enacted a number of laws that regulated the financing of railway lines or the cession of land for routes. Other states such as Prussia left the railway companies in private hands for a long time, but intervened in some cases with regulations.
Already in the constitution, which failed to be established in 1848, there were efforts to jointly control the railways of the entire German Empire. This idea came up again when the empire was founded in 1871, but the decision was ultimately made to leave power in the hands of the individual states. As a result, the state railways developed, the most important of which will be presented in a separate chapter.
The class 015, which was extensively rebuilt by the GDR Reichsbahn, could and had to remain in service longer than the engines of the Federal Railways, which were only modernized.
Simon Tunstall 
It was not until after the First World War, when the German kingdoms, duchies and other states were merged into the Weimar Republic, that an all-German state railway was established. This Deutsche Reichsbahn united the previous state railways as divisions with limited freedom and introduced a joint administration. The Reichsbahn was formally privatized in 1924 and renamed the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. The program to build the standard locomotives was soon started in order to reduce the many different designs of the countries' railways and to get as many interchangeable assemblies as possible among the classes. In 1937 the company was nationalized again by the National Socialists. Thus, in view of the war plans, it was now better possible to orchestrate the railway and use it as a central element in the infrastructure of the campaigns. At the same time, the railway infrastructure and vehicles of the conquered areas were efficiently integrated into the Reichsbahn.
After the Second World War, the railway administrations in the two German states separated. While the name "Reichsbahn" was continued in the GDR, the Deutsche Bundesbahn was founded in the FRG. Both continued to develop steam locomotives in the post-war period, but this only happened on a small scale at the Bundesbahn and was planned as a interim solution until the conversion to electric and diesel locomotives. Instead, due to the economic situation, the Reichsbahn could not do without steam traction for several decades and not only manufactured new steam locomotives, but also started a large-scale reconstruction program with the existing engines.