Class 57.10–35 (Prussian G 10)

Updated: August 2026 – Five equally sized wheels in a long row, with not a single small carrying wheel between them: anyone who sees this is very likely looking at a Class 57.10–35, the Prussian freight locomotive of the G 10 class. It was one of the most important freight locomotives of its era – and today is a purely historic vehicle.

What is Class 57.10–35 (Prussian G 10)?

Class 57.10–35 is the Reichsbahn designation for the Prussian freight tender locomotive of the G 10 class, procured from 1910. Its wheel arrangement is E: five coupled driving axles, no carrying axles. It was designed as a powerful, robust machine for heavy freight trains on routes with limited axle load.

The G 10 was among the most numerous Prussian freight locomotives and stayed in service for decades, before being displaced by standard and post-war designs such as Class 50. Today there’s no scheduled service left – preserved examples belong to museums, societies and collections.

What the designation 57.10–35 actually means

Many steam locomotive classes carry an addition after the dot. That is not a technical code, but a number range. The Reichsbahn assigned each design within a class its own section of running numbers, so that locomotives of different origin wouldn’t get mixed up.

Component	Meaning
57	Class number – freight tender locomotive, five coupled driving axles
.10–35	Number range of the running numbers, here from 57 1001 upwards
G 10 class	Prussian designation: G = freight locomotive, 10 = class grade
Wheel arrangement E	Five driven axles, no carrying axle

You find the same logic in other classes: the addition after the dot, for example, separates the various designs of Class 55 with the G 8 and G 8.1 or the sub-classes of Class 58 with the Prussian G 12. Anyone who has internalised this system reads steam locomotive designations like a sentence.

How to identify a G 10 with confidence

Anyone wanting to learn systematic identification in general, rather than memorising individual classes, will find the right sequence in the guide to identifying classes.

Placing it in railway operations: why five coupled axles

A locomotive transmits its power only through the weight resting on its driven axles. The heavier the train and the steeper the route, the more adhesive weight is needed. At the same time, every route limits the permitted axle load. The solution: spread the weight over more axles and drive all of them.

That’s exactly the idea behind the G 10. It puts a lot of weight onto the rail without overloading individual axles – and could therefore also be used on branch lines with a weaker track bed. The price was a low top speed; as an express locomotive, such a machine would have been unsuitable.

A second point explains why designs like this were built in large numbers: standardisation. Prussia deliberately built its locomotive classes with shared components – boilers, fittings and motion parts were used across class boundaries. That lowered costs in procurement and maintenance and made it possible to reorder the same design in ever-new batches over many years. The same idea led, a good two decades later, to the Reichsbahn’s standard locomotive programme.

For observers, that means: a G 10 in museum operation moves at a gentle pace, but works loudly and visibly. That’s a photographic advantage – you have time for several shots, and the machine delivers the clouds of steam that carry a picture when starting off. How to turn that into a good photo is covered in the guide how to photograph steam trains.

Spotting practice: how to actually get a historic freight locomotive in front of the camera

The key difference from modern vehicles: there’s no diagram you could look up. Instead, you work your way through the institutions that own and operate such locomotives.

Start with the large railway museums such as the Darmstadt-Kranichstein Railway Museum and heritage railways, and look at their fleet lists. These usually also state whether a machine is operational, overhauled, or only on display. After that, check society pages and newsletters, since many restorations and returns to service – for example after an overhaul at the Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works – are announced there first. Finally, cross-check event calendars: steam festivals, station anniversaries and photo days are the occasions when rarely moved machines actually stand under steam.

Specific contacts and search strategies are described in the guide to finding special trains and special excursions. For the photography craft itself – focal length, viewpoint, distance – the guide to the best telephoto lens for railway photography helps, since at special trains you rarely get closer to the subject than you’d like.

Common mix-ups

Verdict

Class 57.10–35 is the classic Prussian freight locomotive in its most consistent form: all weight on driven axles, no compromises made for speed. For spotters it’s a vehicle you don’t meet by chance, but seek out deliberately – through heritage railways, societies and event calendars. Once you’ve seen it, you’ll recognise the long five-coupled wheelbase everywhere afterwards.