DB Class 156

Updated: August 2026 – Four locomotives. That’s all that was ever built of the Class 156. That makes it one of the rarest vehicles ever to run in regular German service – and one of the few where a sighting really is a one-off event. This page shows you how to identify it and how to weigh your chances realistically.

What is the Class 156?

The Class 156 is a six-axle electric locomotive for heavy freight trains, rated for 125 km/h. Exactly four units were built in 1991, numbered 156 001 to 156 004, delivered by Lokomotivbau Hennigsdorf – later the plant of Bombardier Transportation – to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, where they initially ran as Class 252.

That makes it a vehicle at a historical turning point: developed and delivered right before the two German railway administrations were merged, at a time when procurement plans were being reassessed. Nothing came of the intended series – the four locomotives remained a small-batch vehicle and kept that status for their entire operating life.

From 252 to 156: the numbering logic

The numbering path of this class follows exactly the same pattern as its sister class.

• The Deutsche Reichsbahn kept electric locomotives in the 2xx range: 211, 242, 243, 250, 252.
• The Deutsche Bundesbahn had assigned these numbers to diesel locomotives since the 1968 renumbering; the leading 1 there stood for electric locomotives.
• After reunification the Reichsbahn’s electric locomotives moved into free slots of the 1xx series – sorted by intended use.
• The heavy freight locomotive 252 therefore ended up as the 156 in the freight block, right next to the Class 155, while the passenger locomotive 243 became the Class 143.

Anyone who knows this system can read the original intended use off any German electric locomotive’s number. The general approach to identification is explained in the guide to identifying rolling stock classes.

How to identify a 156 in the field

Where it fits into rail operations

With four units, there’s no probability of a sighting in any statistical sense. The question isn’t where this class typically runs, but where exactly these four locomotives are currently being used.

Approach	Usefulness	Why
Current community sightings	high	The only reliable source for individual vehicles
Observing at freight corridors	medium	A fitting operating profile, but very low density
Marshalling yards and train formation facilities	medium	Trains are taken over and made up here
Older diagram and fleet lists	low	Go stale instantly with only four vehicles
Random platform observation	very low	The class is too rare for a lucky hit

The article on tracking freight traffic in Germany explains how to observe freight traffic systematically at all, instead of relying on chance.

Spotting and photo tips

• One chance, one clean shot. With a class this rare there’s rarely a second attempt. Set the camera up beforehand, test the exposure, plan the framing.
• Show the bogies without fail. The six axles, together with the front end, are the decisive feature. A shot that cuts them off loses the evidence.
• Log the number separately. A second shot of just the number plate makes the record unambiguous.
• Plan for context. Station name, date and time belong with a sighting of an individual vehicle – they turn a photo into a data point.

The guide to the sighting logbook shows how to record such sightings in a structured way instead of losing them in the camera roll. Photograph only from platforms or publicly accessible land; tracks, operational railway land and sidings are off limits – the basic rules are set out in the article on keeping a safe distance from the track.

Small batches: why they exist at all

Four locomotives is a poor idea from a business standpoint. Spare-parts stocking, staff training and workshop equipment cost a multiple, per vehicle, of what a mass-produced class requires. Yet such small batches keep occurring – and the reasons are instructive.

• Abandoned procurements. A series is planned, the first vehicles are delivered, then the conditions change. Whatever was delivered stays in the fleet.
• Trial and pre-production vehicles. New technology is often built in small numbers first to gain experience. Some of these units remain one-offs because the series later arrives in a changed form.
• Special tasks with limited demand. Where an operating profile only occurs at one point in the network, a handful of vehicles is enough – for example, locomotives for a single system boundary.
• Political and economic breaks. Procurement programmes don’t survive every restructuring. Vehicles created in the middle of such upheaval often remain a fragment.

For spotters, small batches are therefore doubly interesting: they’re rare, and they almost always tell a story about the moment they were created. Anyone who documents them preserves a piece of procurement history that appears in no timetable.

Common mix-ups

That leaves two realistic mix-up candidates: the four-axle 143 with an identical design language but half the axle count, and the six-axle Class 151 with the same wheel arrangement but an older, angular front design with no window band.

Verdict

The Class 156 is a special case in a double sense: technically the six-axle variant of a well-known design family, operationally a small batch of four machines. Anyone wanting to identify it needs no detailed knowledge, just the willingness to check two features at once – axle count and front-end shape. Anyone wanting to see it, on the other hand, needs current information and a bit of luck.