Class 114

Updated: August 2026 – An angular red electric locomotive with a window band running round the cab, at the head of a double-deck push-pull set: that could be a Class 114 – or one of its close relatives. This page shows you how to pin down the 114, why the number matters more here than any panel detail, and where you’ll realistically find it.

What is the Class 114?

The Class 114 is a four-axle electric locomotive for fast passenger service, rated for 160 km/h and run on 15 kV AC. It’s not an independent design but emerged through renumbering from Class 112.1 – the same machine, a different number plate.

This double designation is typical of the German numbering system and no accident. After 1990, the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s classes had to be fitted into a scheme at the newly founded Deutsche Bahn AG that the Bundesbahn had already occupied. In the process, whole vehicle families moved to new hundred-blocks. The 114 is a late chapter of this reshuffle: within the fast four-axle Hennigsdorf family, it marks an operationally separate group.

Understanding the three-digit class number

Anyone identifying German electric locomotives can’t get around the numbering logic. It carries more information than any detail on the vehicle.

• Before 1968, electric locomotives at the Bundesbahn carried an E and a one- or two-digit number: E 10, E 40, E 41, E 50.
• With the 1968 renumbering, this became the three-digit, computer-compatible scheme: E 10 became 110, E 40 became the Class 140, E 41 became 141.
• The leading digit 1 marks the electric locomotive. Within the hundred-block, the low numbers traditionally denote passenger locomotives, the middle ones freight locomotives, and the 180s multi-system and cross-border locomotives.
• After 1990 the Reichsbahn classes were added and fitted into the same system – wherever there was still room.

The 114 thus sits squarely in the passenger-service segment. How you quickly read such numbers in the field is explained in the guide to finding train numbers and vehicle numbers; the international system behind them is covered in the article on the UIC number and its check digit.

How to identify a 114 in the field

Where it fits in railway operations

The 114 works in locomotive-hauled regional service. That’s a shrinking segment, because many lines have switched to multiple units – and that’s exactly what makes it more interesting for spotters than it used to be. The distinction between service types and their typical vehicles is the real appeal for spotters: locomotive-hauled regional workings are plannable, but no longer available everywhere.

Location	Chance of a sighting	Why
Regionalexpress routes with push-pull sets	high	this is where scheduled use is concentrated
Major hub stations on these lines	high	turnaround times at the platform, good views of the locomotive
Multiple-unit-only lines	very low	no locomotive-hauled service
Long-distance routes with IC/EC	low	dominated by long-distance classes such as the Class 101
Freight lines	very low	wrong service profile

Spotting and photo tips for the 114

The 114 is a rewarding subject, as long as you keep two things in hand: the flat platform light and the number in the frame.

• Three-quarter view rather than head-on. An angle of 30 to 45 degrees to the vehicle axis shows front and side wall at once and reveals the window band running round the cab.
• Plan the number plate into the shot. Because the class here is identified purely by the digits, a shot without a legible number is half worthless for documentation.
• Watch which end of the train it’s at. In push-pull operation the locomotive sits sometimes at the front, sometimes at the back. Choose the wrong platform and you photograph the driving trailer instead.
• Light before perfection. Flat morning or afternoon light draws out the edges; midday light makes the smooth side wall look flat.

Which focal length makes sense for that is covered in the guide to the best telephoto lens for railway photography. And the most important point first: all shots are taken from the platform or from publicly accessible land. Tracks, operational railway land and stabling sidings are off limits – the basic rules are set out in the article on safe distance from the track.

Why documentation pays off especially for this class

For most vehicles, it’s enough to note the class. For the 114, that’s exactly the weakest piece of information you can record.

• The class designation isn’t stable. Locomotives from this vehicle family have moved between the designations 112 and 114. If you only note the class, in five years you have a detail that can no longer be verified.
• The running number stays. Unlike the class digit, a locomotive’s individual number practically never changes. That makes it the real anchor of every sighting.
• The area of use shifts. Transport contracts are re-awarded, diagrams reshuffled, vehicles reassigned to new depots. A sighting with date and place therefore documents a state of affairs that can’t be reconstructed later.
• Liveries tell their own story. Advertising and special liveries only exist within a limited window. Photograph them and you’ll later have more than just another red locomotive shot.

In practice this means: every sighting should include the full vehicle number, date, place and – where possible – a picture of the side wall. How to turn that into a usable collection rather than an unsorted pile of photos is shown in the guide to keeping a sightings log.

Common mix-ups

That names the real, most dangerous mix-ups: the identically built Class 112.1, the slower Class 143 from the same family, and – from a greater distance – the also four-axle Class 111, which has a noticeably different, more rounded front section. Six axles, by contrast, lead you to the Class 151 and its relatives.

Verdict

The Class 114 is a lesson in the fact that a class designation in Germany is an operational category, not necessarily its own design. Recognise the vehicle family by axle count, front shape and window band, and you’ve done ninety per cent of the work – the number handles the rest.