Class 98

Updated: August 2026 – The Class 98 is perhaps the most colourful number group in the German steam locomotive system. Under it the Reichsbahn grouped together the branch-line locomotives: small, light engines for routes that were deliberately built cheap. This page explains what defines a branch line, why the resulting vehicles look the way they do, and where you’ll still meet them today.

What is the Class 98?

The Class 98 is the number group that the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft reserved for standard-gauge branch-line locomotives. Like the neighbouring Class 97 for rack locomotives and the 99 for narrow-gauge engines, it sits at the top end of the system, where special categories were slotted in.

The special thing about it: the 98 describes neither a wheel arrangement nor a particular design, but an operating area. Grouped under it were engines from many different state railways, procured for lightly built secondary lines. The group looks correspondingly inconsistent – two locomotives with a 98 on the front can barely share a single component. Which design is actually meant is revealed only by the sub-class: the Bavarian class BB II, for instance, was run as Class 98.7.

There’s no scheduled service left. Many of these engines disappeared along with the routes they were built for; surviving vehicles today belong to heritage railways and societies.

What defines a branch line – and what follows for the locomotive

The term branch line doesn’t describe a vehicle class, but a building concept. Once you understand it, you can almost derive the design of the associated locomotives.

The logic behind this derivation – inferring the design from the route profile – works for every vehicle class. It’s described in the guide to identifying locomotive classes.

The special categories in the numbering system

The DRG system sorts the great mass of locomotives by purpose and type. Only at the top end do categories follow that escape this logic.

Number band	Category	Sorting criterion
01–19	Express locomotives	Purpose, tender type
20–39	Passenger locomotives	Purpose, tender type
40–59	Freight locomotives	Purpose, tender type
60–79	Passenger tank locomotives	Purpose, tank type
80–96	Freight and shunting tank locomotives	Purpose, tank type
97	Rack locomotives	Drive principle
98	Branch-line locomotives	Operating area and route type
99	Narrow-gauge locomotives	Gauge

The comparison shows why the 98 is so hard to pin down: it sorts by where a locomotive ran, not by how it was built. A shunting engine like the Class 89 is fully described by its wheel arrangement C at a glance – with the 98, the number alone tells you almost nothing.

Why the sub-class matters more here than usual

For most classes the two-digit number is enough for a useful classification. Not for the 98. Because vehicles from many railway administrations came together here, only the running-number block decides which design is meant.

In practice that means: always note the full running number at a sighting, not just the class. A note reading “saw a 98” is worthless; only 98 7xx or 98 8xx makes the record usable. Anyone organising photos and notes for the long term should be consistent about this from the start – how to build an archive like that is described in the guide to a photo archive for spotters.

Where to find branch-line locomotives today

Most likely wherever the routes have survived too: at heritage railways on former secondary lines. These operations suit such engines well technically – short routes, low loads, modest speed. What an operation like that looks like is shown by the Märkische Museums-Eisenbahn in the Sauerland, which runs under steam on the surviving remnant of a light-railway network.

• The operating society first. Only they know which engine is currently fit for service and when it runs.
• Heritage railway event calendars. Season openings, museum festivals and themed weekends account for most workings. The guide to heritage railways and special workings shows how to find dates like these.
• Work through regional heritage lines. Small operators in particular are weakly represented online but very active.
• Community reports for transfer runs and short-notice workings.

Photo tips for small secondary-line engines

Branch-line engines have a size problem in the photo: from standing eye height they quickly look like models. Three countermeasures help.

A low viewpoint. At axle-mid height the engine gains mass and the running gear becomes legible.

Bring in the surroundings. Especially with branch lines, the context is the subject: a small station, a loading road, a farm track, a row of trees. A locomotive isolated with no surroundings gives away exactly what makes these railways special.

Secure completeness. Alongside the showpiece shot, a clean side-on view for the wheel arrangement and a detail shot of the running number belong in the set. Without them, there’s no way to establish later which engine you actually saw.

Common mix-ups

Verdict

The Class 98 is the number where the German steam locomotive system abandons its own logic: instead of sorting by purpose and wheel arrangement, it groups together whatever ran on lightly built secondary lines. That makes it technically confusing and historically especially interesting, because the whole variety of the state railways is reflected in it. In practice that means one thing above all: without the full running number, a sighting in this group stays unusable.