The Royal Bavarian State Railways were already using steam railcars from around 1880, but after the turn of the century the time was ripe for a new model with bogies. Therefore, between 1906 and 1908, a total of seven examples of the MCCi class were procured with a car body from MAN and power plant from Maffei. In principle, the powered bogie was identical to the two-axle ML 2/2 local railway locomotive that Maffei was offering at the same time.

Drive bogie with boiler, controls and coal hopper

Die Lokomotive, March 1907

What was special about this power plant was that cylinders fitted in the middle on the outside with opposing pistons each acted on a wheel set and these wheel sets were in turn connected by coupling rods. While the coupling rods on the ML 2/2 were on the inside and acted on cranked axles, here they were on the outside. The boiler was above this bogie inside the car body and could therefore be reached by the engine driver in the front driver's cab. The entire bogie, including boiler and controls, weighed 18.2 tonnes and could be separated from the car for maintenance.

Schematic drawing with dimensions

Die Lokomotive, August 1906

As with the local railway locomotives ML 2/2 and PtL 2/2, a semi-automatic mechanism ensured that one person could drive and stoke the locomotive alone. If the railcar drove ahead with the non-powered bogie, the conductor in the second driver's cab could operate the brake valve himself and communicate with the engine driver via a speaking tube. Behind the power unit was the usable space with 55 seats, 30 standing places and a small luggage compartment. In comparison with a passenger train pulled by a B VI and having the same capacity, a cost saving of 25 percent and half the coal consumption was quoted. Thanks to a possible trailer load of 40 tonnes, the capacity could be increased with one to two passenger cars.

After being taken over by the Reichsbahn, four of the examples were converted into electric railcars in 1924 and initially designated as the D4i ElT. They performed well in use and therefore formed the basis of the ET 85, which had been in series production since 1927. Another example was converted to diesel by MAN in 1928 and tested in the Nuremberg area, but could not keep up with the electric versions and was decommissioned after a short time.

Between 1907 and 1911, the Bavarian State Railways and the Salzburg Railway and Tramway Company (SETG) jointly procured a series of two-axle electric railcars for 1,000 volts DC that were to be used in cross-border traffic. The vehicles were characterized by the fact that they were almost identical in terms of vehicle construction and were mostly manufactured by MAN, but the electrical equipment came from the respective country of the operator.

The carriages were constructed in a manner similar to that seen on typical interurban trams at the time. The car body thus resembled the short, two-axle passenger cars. The differences consisted of the pantograph on the roof, the electrical equipment under the cab floor and the traction motors on both axles. It was also possible to carry trailers of about the same size.

The Bavarian railcars received the electrical part from AEG. The engines had an hourly output of 60 hp each and a continuous output of 50 hp each. In order to save on import duties for this equipment in Austria, only the car bodies were supplied by MAN and the equipment from the Austrian Siemens-Schuckert works was installed into them. Because these engines were more powerful, these vehicles could tow three trailers instead of two. A total of eleven vehicles were built at MAN for Bavaria and ten for Austria, and three more were manufactured at Simmering for SETG.

When the Deutsche Reichsbahn took over the Bavarian cars, they were designated ET 184⁰. From 1938 the section from Berchtesgaden to Hangender Stein was shut down and four years later the rest of the line was switched to alternating current. Most of the vehicles were handed over to the Hohenfurth electric local railway, which is located in what is now the Czech Republic. The remaining three were handed over to the SETG, where they were modernized in 1950 and received, among other things, more powerful motors.

This railcar is named after its inventor Georg Thomas, who was director of the Hessian Ludwigsbahn and thought about the most efficient vehicle possible for passenger transport. The double-decker vehicle, with its well-engineered and forward-looking design, was soon able to find several buyers, but mass production was ultimately denied.

Although the railcar looked like one piece at first glance, it was actually a combination of a single-axle power module and a two-axle passenger car. These two parts could only be separated from each other in the workshop, but the patent also explicitly provided for the use of the rear part as an independent car. In the lower part there were compartments of all three classes and in the upper part there were only third class transverse benches. To make the best use of space, the boiler was mounted across the rear of the driver's cab and the power was transmitted to the cranked axle by cylinders mounted under the floor.

The power was sufficient to be able to pull up to three cars. The coal was also stored inside the driver's cab and the water supplies were located under the floor of the passenger compartment to save space. Although there was also a cable on the rear platform to operate the whistle, normal driving was only possible in one direction. Reaching the driver's cab via the roof and a roof hatch was intended in the design, but can only be seen as an emergency solution. This meant that the railcar had to be rotated at the end of the line to change direction.

Despite the predicted great future and the sales to several railway administrations, this vehicle did not prove itself and thus all locomotives were retired around the turn of the century.

The railcars 800 to 804 were procured for the Ravensburg-Weingarten-Baienfurt interurban tram after it had been electrified in 1910 with 750 V direct current. Although the line was in Württemberg, it was operated by the Bavarian Localbahn-Aktiengesellschaft.

The vehicles had a total length of just over 13 meters and stood on two two-axle bogies, of which the outer axle was driven. Each was driven by a nose-suspended motor with a continuous output of 33 kW, which was initially supplied with electricity by a Lyra pantograph. Later these were first replaced by one and then by two diamond-shaped pantographs. Behind the six windows on each side was a seating group each, four of which belonged to the third class and two to the second class. In the third class there were two people on each side, facing each other, and in the second class there was a transverse, padded bench for three people on each side. This resulted in a capacity of 43 people.

If a higher passenger volume was to be expected, regular narrow-gauge passenger cars could be carried as trailers. The operating conditions and the available motor power limited the train load to two two-axle or one four-axle car. It was not possible to get from the railcar into the trailer while running.

The Reichsbahn started a rebuild in 1928, replacing the air brakes with modern magnetic track brakes. In addition, a few years later, the second-class compartments became third-class, which increased the number of seats to 48. From 1941 they were designated as ET 195 and kept this designation later on at the Bundesbahn. After they were first dark green, then from 1936 lime green with a beige window band and later beige-light red, they were given the typical maroon color scheme at the Bundesbahn. Since the use of newer vehicles from 1954, they were only used as reinforcement trains, but they remained in service until the line was closed in 1959.

After the procurement of the first battery railcars, the Prussian State Railways also developed nultiple units connected to overhead lines, with Gustav Wittfeld once again being in charge. The construction of the three-part unit was based on modern aspects. The middle car was shorter than the driving trailers and contained the power train. Part of this car was designed as an engine room, but the two traction motors were in a bogie and drove the two axles via a common jackshaft and rod drive. At the other end of the center car was a single axle.

The separation of the passenger compartment and propulsion technology reduced the noise to a lower level than was usual with other vehicles at the time. Since the vehicles were to be used primarily on the Silesian mountain railways, the cooling of the engines was designed accordingly. The two driving trailers were also three-axle and each had a bogie at the outer ends and a single axle at the inner end. Overall, these multiple units offered second, third and fourth class and a fourth-class luggage compartment. However, since the latter was located near the main switch, it was not used later on. The reason for this was that the main switch was designed as an oil kettle, which would have exploded in the event of a short circuit.

Six units were built, all of which were initially used as planned on the Silesian mountain railways. After a while, however, they had to be relocated to less topographically demanding areas, since the engines often overheated despite the generously designed cooling system. There was also excessive wear on the carbon brushes, which is why the 183 kW motors were replaced in 1925/1926 with differently designed 250 kW motors.

In 1940 the vehicles were renumbered ET 87 01 to ET 87 05 after one example had already been retired after an accident in 1937. After the war, the vehicles were in Czechoslovakia and only ET 87 03 to 05 could be rescued from the border area to West Germany in 1949. There they were used in suburban traffic in Nuremberg until 1959.

The two vehicles, designated DET 1 and DET 2, were the first operational railcars in Europe to be powered by a diesel engine. Although they were developed at the request of the Saxon and Prussian State Railways, they only stayed in Saxony until testing was complete and spent the rest of their lives in Switzerland. The sister series of the DET were three Prussian railcars with the designations VT 101 to 103, which were phased out immediately after their testing and soon thereafter retired.

In order to distribute the weight of the railcars as evenly as possible, the diesel engine and the electric drive unit were placed on opposite ends of the vehicle. The engine from the Swiss company Sulzer and the associated generator were located in a hood in front of the front driver's cab and rested on a non-powered, three-axle bogie. The electric motor was housed in the rear bogie, which drove the two axles via a jackshaft and rod.

The car body, including the driver's cabs, was strongly reminiscent of the four-axle passenger cars of the time. As is common today with road vehicles, the heat from the cooling water from the engine was used to heat the interior. The interior lighting was already electric, and four of the five axles were braked using air brakes.

The two vehicles were delivered to the Saxon State Railways in 1915 and tested primarily on the Dresden-Döbeln-Leipzig route. However, after it was no longer used as planned due to the war, it was brought to Switzerland for a demonstration in 1922, where the planned sale to the SBB did not take place.

Instead, they came to the Régional du Val-de-Travers in the canton of Neuchâtel, where they would remain in service for a long time. In 1938, one vehicle was handed over to the SBB for refurbishment after severe damage. However, this refurbishment was not carried out due to the war, so that this vehicle was scrapped in 1948. The other vehicle was retired until 1965 after a defect and is now on display in the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne.

The DW type steam railcars were developed for the Royal Württemberg State Railways from 1893, but a few examples were also built for the Baden State Railways. They were also known under the name “Kittel steam railcar”, which can be traced back to the Württemberg chief engineer Eugen Kittel.

A sample and six production vehicles were equipped with a boiler according to Henri Serpollet's patent. Unlike other boilers, this one did not have a water supply, but only the amount of steam that was currently required was generated directly by evaporation on the hot walls. Despite its low weight, it was not convincing. For this reason, Kittel developed its own type of upright boiler, with which the existing cars were equipped. Since these proved themselves, Württemberg ordered ten more vehicles with the new boiler, and an order for eight vehicles in almost identical design also came from Baden.

The railcars were mainly used on small branch lines with low passenger numbers in the area of the two operators. When the Reichsbahn took them over, they were given the numbers 9 to 14. In the 1930s, most of the examples were either retired or sold to private railways. A vehicle arrived in France in 1945 and remained in service there until 1953.

The Wittfeld-type battery railcars were procured by the Prussian State Railways from 1907 in order to obtain a cheap and easy-to-operate means of transport for passenger transport on branch lines. The designation came from engineer Gustav Wittfeld, who designed the concept for these vehicles at the Ministry of Public Works. The requirement was that around 100 people should be transported at 50 km/h and that the capacity of the batteries should be sufficient for a range of 100 km. Since the acid in the batteries at that time gave off larger amounts of foul-smelling gases, the desire for a separation of the passenger compartment from the batteries was also expressed, as was not the case with the first battery-powered railcars.

The first of the railcars built consisted of two halves, each with two axles, of which the inner one was powered. At each end there was a hood for accommodating the batteries. Since these were very heavy and brought the axle load to a level that was critical for branch lines, the individual axles at the ends were replaced by two steering axles from 1913. All existing copies were also retrofitted in this way. To increase the passenger capacity, a passenger car was sometimes attached to the railcars. Since this was only a temporary solution, eight examples were later built with a trailer. This also received the traction motors, while the batteries remained in the end cars.

Inside, the vehicles differed depending on the requirements, but mostly they only had third and fourth class seats. In the latter there were also some standing places, more were made available in the rear driver's cab. In some railcars there was a second class compartment and/or a luggage compartment and in some cases toilets.

The vehicles were designated AT₃ from 1909 and were initially used primarily in Poland. Even after the First World War, some came to Poland as reparations. In service with the Reichsbahn, the area of application expanded to other regions in Germany. After the Second World War, the remaining railcars on the territory of the Federal Railways were reconditioned, since a large number of them were no longer in a roadworthy condition. Depending on the type of electrical equipment, they were designated ETA 177, 178 and 180 and remained in use until 1964. In the GDR, her life ended in 1954 because there were no funds for reconstruction.