DB Class 101: Identify, Find and Photograph the Intercity Locomotive

Updated: August 2026 – The Class 101 is the locomotive everyone knows without being able to name it: a wedge-shaped front, a smooth red body, an Intercity train in front of it. For spotters it is doubly interesting – as a clearly recognisable vehicle, and as a class that has carried advertising liveries as often as almost no other. This guide covers the identification features, typical duties, and how to catch it deliberately.

Recognising the Class 101: the short answer

You recognise the Class 101 by its wedge-shaped, tapering front with one large, continuous-looking windscreen and flush-mounted lights. It is a four-axle three-phase electric locomotive with a smooth, angular body and a single-arm pantograph – built for loco-hauled long-distance service, not for heavy freight trains.

In service you typically see it in front of Deutsche Bahn AG’s Intercity trains, often in push-pull operation: the locomotive at one end, a driving trailer at the other. That’s exactly why spotters miss it most often – they’re standing at the wrong end of the train. The guide on decoding train numbers for ICE, IC, RE and RB explains how to correctly read the train category and route in advance.

The identification features in detail

If you want to identify classes, you work through a fixed order: shape first, then details, then the number last. With the 101, this goes especially quickly.

From the front

The front section is the strongest feature. It narrows towards the top, giving it the look of a flat wedge. The large windscreen visually spans the entire width, and the lights sit low and flush in the front. This design comes from a generation that deliberately set out to break with the angular body design of older electric locomotives.

From the side

The side wall is unusually smooth – few grilles, clean edges, a continuous trim line depending on the livery. Four axles on two two-axle bogies are standard for a passenger locomotive of this class. Anyone documenting vehicles always photographs the side with the running number too, because the number is the only unambiguous identification.

From the roof

A single-arm pantograph, clearly visible roof cabling and insulators. From elevated platform positions, this is a good distinguishing feature against classes with different roof equipment.

Feature	Class 101	Typical general-purpose electric locomotive	Multiple unit (ICE family)
Front	wedge-shaped, one large continuous windscreen	angular or rounded, split windscreens	aerodynamic head, fixed within the train formation
Axles	four	four	distributed across the whole train
Type of service	loco-hauled long-distance	regional and freight service	self-contained multiple unit
Train formation	locomotive plus coaches, often with a driving trailer	locomotive plus coaches, or freight train	permanently coupled unit
Changing liveries	very common, many advertising locomotives	occasional	rare, mostly special wraps
Recognisability for beginners	very high	medium	high, but without a locomotive number

Where the 101 comes from and what it replaced

The 101 was built in the 1990s at Adtranz, the predecessor of Bombardier Transportation, as a new long-distance locomotive for loco-hauled passenger trains. It was meant to replace a generation of older electric locomotives that had shaped Bundesbahn long-distance service for decades, and it brought with it three-phase drive technology that was state-of-the-art at the time. That’s more than a technical footnote: three-phase drive means finer control, less wear, and a different sound when starting off – the quiet, rising whir you’ll know from newer electric locomotives.

For spotters, this historical context is interesting because it explains why the 101 looks the way it does. The wedge-shaped front comes from a design generation that deliberately wanted to break with the angular body construction of older classes. And the focus on passenger service explains why you almost never see it in front of freight trains: it’s built for a different job than a general-purpose locomotive.

Today it stands at a turning point itself. New rolling-stock concepts are gradually replacing the classic loco-hauled train with multiple units and other train formations. Spotters know from other classes how this kind of phase-out feels in practice: no cut-off date, but a years-long thinning-out in which individual workings become ever more valuable. If you want to document the class in active service, don’t put it off for a hypothetical farewell run.

Advertising locomotives: this class’s collecting theme

Hardly any German electric locomotive has been wrapped as often as the 101. The reason is simple: it runs in long-distance service on heavily used routes and is therefore visible. For spotters this has become its own collecting theme – if you want a specific advertising locomotive, you need to know which designs are currently in service and where.

Handling information about this matters: advertising liveries are applied and later removed, designs are discontinued, locomotives go into the workshop. Every list goes out of date. Only current reports are reliable. The Drehscheibe Online guide to advertising locomotives describes how the scene organises this.

Where and when you’ll find the 101

The 101 is tied to loco-hauled trains. That narrows the search considerably – but also makes it plannable if you know which services run loco-hauled. The share of these trains is declining because new rolling-stock concepts are replacing the classic loco-hauled train. That’s exactly why documenting it now is worthwhile.

For live tracking itself, it’s worth checking the guide on how to track a moving train and the guide to tracking ICE journeys – the mechanics are the same, only the train category differs.

Are you ready to hunt the 101 deliberately?

Photo technique: what matters with a smooth electric locomotive

The 101 is a rewarding yet demanding subject. Its smooth surfaces reflect strongly, the wedge-shaped front needs side light to look three-dimensional, and in long-distance service it moves fast.

• Don’t cut the shutter speed too fine. For sharp fronts at high speed you need much shorter times than in regional service.
• Watch for reflections. Platform canopies, catenary masts and the sun create hard glare on the smooth surface.
• Prefer side light. Lit from the front, the face looks flat; lit from the side, it shows its shape.
• Choose a suitable focal length. A standard zoom is enough for platform shots; on the open line a telephoto lens helps – details in the article on which focal length suits railway photography.

A detail that stands out particularly with this class: because the body is so smooth, it shows every change in light immediately. A 101 in soft evening light looks completely different from the same locomotive under a platform canopy. If you photograph a specific machine several times, you get very different pictures as a result – which is more of an advantage than a problem for an archive.

What to watch out for

• Don’t rely on colour. Advertising locomotives carry completely different liveries – the body shape stays the reliable feature.
• Don’t mistake the driving trailer. The driving trailer looks similarly high-quality from the front, but it isn’t a locomotive. If you only photograph the front, you sometimes only notice back at home.
• Don’t rely on outdated diagram information. Loco-hauled services are reorganised with every timetable change.
• Follow platform rules. Stay behind the safety line, keep door areas clear, don’t cross tracks – that applies to every subject.
• Don’t only visit long-distance stations. You get clean shots at intermediate stops and clearly visible line sections too. The overview of the best stations for trainspotting in Germany shows where it pays off.
• Don’t leave sightings unrecorded. Without a date and location, an advertising-locomotive shot is barely traceable later – the overview of live sightings and real-time news shows how others solve this.

Conclusion

The Class 101 is one of the last great constants of loco-hauled long-distance service in Germany – and exactly for that reason a topic with an expiry date. Recognising it is easy: the wedge-shaped front is enough. Catching a specific machine or a specific advertising livery is harder. For that you need three things: knowledge of which trains run loco-hauled, a tool for tracking the specific journey, and current sightings from the community. If you’re interested in the multiple-unit side of long-distance service, the ICE guide with sightings, photo spots and classes is the fitting complement, and the guide to railway photography with tips and locations delivers the location work to go with it.