Between 1854 and 1882, the PLM and its predecessors received around 1,300 0-6-0 freight locomotives which became known as the “Bourbonnais” type. They had been necessary when the existing “Mammouth” freight locomotive became too weak. The name came from the Chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon par le Bourbonnais, the first railway that ordered these locomotives. Others were ordered by the Chemin de fer de Lyon à la Méditerranée, before these two became the PLM. In addition to the PLM, more railways between Portugal and Russia ordered virtually exactly the same locomotives. By far the largest series of the type consisted of 945 locomotives and was numbered 1513 to 2457. These were built for the PLM between 1860 and 1875.

Being of the longboiler type, they had a short wheelbase of less than 3.5 metres and an overhanging firebox. The cylinders measured 450 mm in diameter and 650 mm in stroke and were mounted on the outside. With a boiler pressure of originally eight bars, they delivered around 350 hp. This was enough to haul 1,200 tonnes on the level with 25 km/h or 300 tonnes on one percent. From the late 1870s, they got new boilers with fewer tubes and less weight, but more power thanks to a higher boiler pressure. From 1903, some were equipped with internally finned Serve tubes.

From 1924, the PLM designated them 3 A and 3 B, depending on their year of construction. 215 had been rebuilt to 0-6-0T tank locomotives between 1907 and 1913. These were numbered 7401 to 7615 and were now designated 3 AM. Between 1892 and 1910, 140 others had been rebuilt to four-cylinder compound 0-8-0 locomotives, numbered 4501 to 4640 and later designated 4 C. In 1938, the SNCF inherited 201 of the original 0-6-0 locomotives and only took over 30 as 030 B. They also took over all of the 0-8-0 locomotives as 5-040 C and all of the 0-6-0T as 5-030 TB. The last 0-6-0T locomotives used by the Nord region, now called 2-030 TD, were withdrawn in 1967.