In addition to the P 1, another 320 older passenger locomotives were assigned to class P 2, most of which also had axle configuration 2-4-0. 24 of these were 0-4-2 locomotives and two were 4-4-0 engines, which were left over from a total of twelve examples in 1905. These were only locomotives from the Elberfeld, Frankfurt and Kassel (then Cassel) divisions.

The vast majority of the P 2 consisted of the so-called “older standard design”, of which a total of 242 units were built between 1877 and 1885. The first examples were ordered by predecessors of the state railways mainly for the Kanonenbahn from Berlin via Wetzlar to Metz, others followed for the Prussian state railways and other railway administrations. In contrast to most engines of the P 1 type, the leading axle was fixed in the frame. This meant lower costs, but ensured only moderate driving qualities in curves. The valve gear was on the inside for about two-thirds of the locomotives and on the outside for the rest.

The other operators came from the north, these were the Neustrelitz-Warnemüde Railway, the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz Railway and the Lübeck-Büchen Railway. In the case of the latter, the locomotives were somewhat smaller and less powerful than the others.

Another type of P 2 were the locomotives of the Rhenish Railway, which had been ordered for the winding routes along the Rhine. For better cornering and less wear on the wheel flanges, the fixed leading axle was replaced with a two-axle bogie, but without reducing the axle load of the coupled wheel sets. Of these twelve engines, only two survived the year 1905, when the grouping to form the P 2 took place.

Since the assignments to the P 1, P 2 or P 3 were made regionally, some locomotives of the normal design of the P 2 also came into one of the other two classes. One thing all three had in common was that they were completely phased out before the Reichsbahn was founded.