Shortly before the opening of the Trans-Iranian Railway in 1938, Krupp was tasked to design a 2-8-0 and a 2-10-0 locomotive. They had to be fired with oil, with the option to fire coal if necessary. Since the railway was still a new thing in the region, they were designed to be maintained in simple workshops and operated by inexperienced crews. The major part was made up of 49 2-8-0 locomotives.

24 were built by Krupp, 16 by Henschel and 9 by Esslingen. Designated class 41 due to four driving axles and one leading axle, they got the numbers 41.11 to 41.60. With the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran in 1941, the procurement of German locomotives ended. The German locomotives were repaired, but at the same time British steam locomotives were introduced. It only took two more years until diesel traction was introduced with ALCO RSD-1 locomotives.

The class P of the Palestine Railways consisted of six 4-6-0 locomotives built by North British in 1935 and numbered 60 to 65. They had been ordered to speed up traffic on the line between Haifa and El Kantara when it became clear that the older class H built by Baldwin could no longer keep up with the growing requirements on this line. Although officially being classed as mixed-traffic locomotives, their main task was to haul expresses which also had CIWL sleeping cars in them. The drivers of the class P were 4 3/4 inches bigger than those of the class H.

The locomotives with their Belpaire fireboxes looked British, but they had received American-style bogie tenders for greater capacity and better running characteristics. Built for burning Welsh coal, they were converted to oil burning in World War II when import of coal from Wales became too dangerous. All six survived this and the following conflicts and came to Israel Railways in 1948. After diesel locomotives had taken over the work on the main line in 1956, the class P still found some work elsewhere and was withdrawn in 1959 when steam service ended in Israel. Only the tender of 62 was preserved.