DB Class 212 (V100)

Updated: August 2026 – The Class 212 is what you’d call a workhorse in the world of rolling stock: a four-axle diesel locomotive for everything between branch-line duty and marshalling yard work. Until 1968 it ran as V 100.20; since then it has carried a three-digit number. This page shows you how to identify it, how it differs from the near-identical 211, and where you can still find it today.

What is the Class 212 (V100)?

The Class 212 is a four-axle main-line diesel locomotive with hydraulic power transmission from the West German V 100 family. It’s rated for 100 km/h, carries the wheel arrangement B’B’ and follows the classic bonneted body style: a long bonnet housing the engine and cooling system, a short bonnet with auxiliary equipment, and the cab in between.

Compared with the Class 211, it differs in its power unit: it descended from the more powerful version, the V 100.20. That doesn’t help you visually – both classes share the same frame, bodywork and silhouette. That’s typical of the V 100 world, and it’s why the vehicle number plays a bigger role here than for most other classes.

Identifying it: body style first, number last

The general approach – from the broad body style to the fine detail of the number – is covered in full in the guide to identifying locomotive classes.

What the number tells you about a diesel locomotive

Before 1968, Deutsche Bundesbahn used letter codes: E for electric, V for internal combustion (Verbrennungsmotor), followed by a number that roughly indicated output in hundreds of horsepower. Sub-classes such as V 100.10 and V 100.20 distinguished versions within one family.

With the switch to machine-readable numbers, the letters disappeared and their information moved into the first digit. For diesel locomotives, that left the 200 range – and within it, the tens block sorts the vehicle families.

Number range	Vehicle family	Typical body style
20x	East German-built V 100 and its rebuilds	Bonneted locomotive, angular bodywork
21x	West German-built V 100 and its rebuilds	Bonneted locomotive, rounded bodywork
215 to 219	V 160 family	Full-width body with a cab at each end
22x	heavier main-line diesel locomotives of older design	Full-width body, six axles on some classes
26x and 36x	V 60 and related shunting locomotives	Shunting locomotive with coupling rods

How the full twelve-digit number with country and keeper codes is structured is explained in the article on the UIC number and its check digit.

Its place in railway operations

The V 100 was the answer to a simple question: what would replace the many small steam locomotives on branch lines? Its remit was correspondingly broad – short passenger trains, freight trains, transfer runs, shunting. As the branch-line network was scaled back and main lines were electrified, that role largely disappeared – today it survives mainly at heritage railways such as the Lokalbahn Schierling-Langquaid (Laabertalbahn).

What has remained is a second career: engineering trains, works traffic and workings for private railway operators – lessors such as On Rail still keep such locomotives in their fleets today. Individual locomotives were converted for special tasks and have since carried their own class numbers – a pattern that continues with the Class 214. Other locomotives from the same family were equipped for special route conditions and run as the Class 213.

Photo tips for a slow locomotive

The great advantage of this class: it rarely runs fast. That opens up shot ideas that don’t work with long-distance trains.

• Try longer shutter speeds. At shunting and engineering-train pace, panning shots are much easier to pull off than at 160 km/h.
• Show the whole locomotive. The characteristic bonneted shape looks best from the side or in a slight three-quarter view – head-on it looks flat.
• Watch the details. Radiator grilles, exhausts and bonnet hatches differ between original vehicles and rebuilds. An extra close-up shot is worth taking.

The underlying technique – depth of field, exposure, panning – is covered in the guide to taking good photos of trains.

Bonneted, full-width, shunting: the three basic body styles

If you want to identify diesel locomotives, three body shapes get you remarkably far. They’re distinguishable even from a distance and in poor light – and immediately narrow down the possibilities considerably.

The bonneted locomotive carries a long and a short bonnet with the cab in between. This layout is a compromise between main-line running and shunting duty: sightlines to both sides are workable, the equipment is easily accessible, and the body is low. The entire V 100 family follows this principle.

The full-width locomotive has a continuous body with a cab at each end. It’s optimised for main-line service: better forward visibility, more room for the engine and train heating, higher speeds. The V 160 family belongs here, as do practically all electric locomotives.

The classic shunting locomotive is lower, shorter and often has only three axles with coupling-rod drive. Its design is built for good all-round visibility and low speeds, not main-line running.

If you can reliably tell these three shapes apart, you’ve done half the work of identification. With a four-axle bonneted locomotive, only a few families remain in Germany, and within the V 100 the number then settles it. With a four-axle full-width locomotive and no pantograph, on the other hand, you inevitably land in the V 160 world.

That’s exactly why it pays to start identification with the silhouette rather than details like livery or lettering – those change, the body style doesn’t.

Common mix-ups

Verdict

The Class 212 is a locomotive you find interesting not for its performance figures but for its role: it carried branch-line operations for decades and has since had a second career in engineering and works traffic. Identification only needs body style and number – though here the number is, exceptionally, the more important part, because the family looks so uniform from the outside.