DR Class 01.5

Updated: August 2026 – An express steam locomotive that looks like a 01, but with large cab windows and a strikingly modern boiler: that’s the Class 01.5. It is a textbook example of the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s reconstruction policy – old engines were not replaced but modernised from the ground up. This page shows you the differences from the original design and how to plan a sighting.

What is the Class 01.5?

The Class 01.5 is an express steam locomotive with a tender and the wheel arrangement 2’C1’, created during the 1960s at the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s Meiningen works, today known as the Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works, which still maintains steam locomotives. It is not a new build: the starting point was existing Class 01 locomotives, which received a new, welded boiler with a combustion chamber and a range of further modernisations.

The background is economic. In East Germany, large numbers of older steam locomotives had worn-out boilers, while capacity and foreign currency for new builds were lacking. The answer was a systematic reconstruction programme: a new heart on a proven chassis. Some engines were additionally converted to oil firing. To this day, none of these locomotives remain in scheduled service – surviving examples belong to museums and societies.

What the numbers reveal about the locomotive

With German steam locomotives, half the information is in the number plate. Anyone who knows the system can read off the class, design variant and, in the case of the Reichsbahn, even the firing type from the number.

For how to work through such features in a fixed order rather than comparing at random, see the guide to identifying locomotive classes.

Rebuilt engines at a glance

The 01.5 doesn’t stand alone. The Deutsche Reichsbahn’s reconstruction programme covered several classes, each following the same basic idea: new boiler, modernised cab, extended service life.

Class	Base class	Purpose	Wheel arrangement
Class 01.5	Class 01	Express service	2’C1’
Class 22	Class 39 (Prussian P 10)	Heavy passenger and express service	1’D1’
Class 50.35	Class 50	Freight service	1’E
Class 65.10	New build, not a rebuild	Passenger tank engine	1’D2’

The Class 22 shows particularly well how far such rebuilds could go: a Prussian design from the state-railway era became a machine that barely still resembled its origin. The Class 01 remains the direct benchmark for comparison with the 01.5, while the three-cylinder Class 01.10 marks the West German route to the fast express locomotive.

Spotting: how to catch a 01.5

Historic steam locomotives follow a different logic to regular vehicles. There’s no diagram, no timetable and no fixed route – there are only dates.

Where you can find such dates gathered together, and which museum operators regularly run big locomotives, is covered by the heritage railway guide. Because the exact number decides the identification on rebuilt engines, careful logging is especially worthwhile here – the guide to keeping a sighting log shows how to do that in a structured way. Photographically, steam has its own demands, covered by the guide to photographing steam trains.

Photo tips for rebuilt locomotives

You photograph a rebuilt engine like any big steam machine – with one exception: it’s especially worth looking closely at the details, because that’s exactly where the rebuild history becomes visible.

• Side-on rather than head-on. An angle of roughly 30 to 45 degrees to the vehicle axis shows the boiler, cab and motion gear all at once. From the front, everything that distinguishes a 01.5 from a 01 disappears.
• Include the cab. The large side windows are the most striking feature of the rebuild. A shot in which they’re recognisable proves the identification.
• Check the wind direction beforehand. In still, cold air the steam plume drapes over the whole engine. A crosswind carries it out of the shot and reveals the motion gear.
• Choose your shutter speed deliberately. Fast for pin-sharp connecting rods, slower for visible motion – both work, as long as the choice is deliberate.
• Photograph the number plate separately. A tight shot of the number is the best insurance against not knowing years later which engine you were looking at.

That last point matters especially for this class. Museum operators present vehicles in the condition of a particular era, so the same locomotive might run with a pre-war number, or with 01 05xx or 01 15xx. Without a documented number plate, that can barely be resolved afterwards. Anyone who regularly follows special workings therefore gets into the habit of photographing every vehicle twice: once as a picture, once as evidence.

Common mix-ups

Verdict

The Class 01.5 is a vehicle you only truly place once you know its history. On the outside an express locomotive like the 01, but at its core largely a new machine – with a numbering system that even reveals the firing type. That exact combination of an old basic form and modern technology makes it one of the most interesting objects in German steam locomotive history.