Class E 18

Updated: August 2026 – Among German classic electrics, the Class E 18 is the most elegant: a rounded front, a closed body, a maximum speed of 150 km/h. In the 1930s it was the flagship product of German electric locomotive building. This page shows how you recognise it, why it carries three different numbers, and where you can still find it today.

What is Class E 18?

The E 18 is an express electric locomotive with the wheel arrangement 1’Do1’, built by AEG from 1935 for the 15 kV AC network. It was approved for 150 km/h – a figure that put it at the top of German electric locomotive building in its day. At the Deutsche Bundesbahn it later ran as Class 118, at the Deutsche Reichsbahn of the GDR as Class 218.

Alongside the technology, its styling is its trademark. While the E 16 and E 17 still look like machines, the E 18 looks designed: rounded transitions, closed surfaces, a front visibly conceived with speed in mind. It thus stands at the start of a line that runs via Class 103 to today’s Class 101.

Identification: shape beats detail

With classic electrics, the front shape is, exceptionally, the fastest feature – because the E 18 differs so clearly from its sisters in this respect.

The basic approach to identification is described step by step in the guide to identifying classes.

Placing it: the ancestry of the fast passenger locomotives

German railways have always kept a locomotive class in reserve for the highest-value passenger trains. In the 1930s that was the E 18 – the following table shows how this role has developed over the decades.

Era	Typical express locomotive	Maximum speed	Running-gear design
1930s	E 18	150 km/h	frame construction with carrying axles
1950s and 1960s	E-10 family	150 to 160 km/h	bogies, four axles
1970s and 1980s	Class 103	over 200 km/h	bogies, six axles
from the 1990s	Class 101	220 km/h	bogies, three-phase drive

The comparison makes clear what’s changed: not just the speed, but above all the construction. Carrying axles and visible drive mechanics disappear, bogies and electronics take over.

Photo tips for a rounded front

Round shapes behave differently in light than angular ones. With the E 18, the angle decides whether the vehicle looks three-dimensional or flat.

The guide to good photos of trains explains how to turn that into reliably good pictures. If you’d then like to share your observation, the guide to reporting sightings helps.

Streamlined shape: fashion or engineering?

The 1930s were the decade of streamlining. Cars, aircraft, ships and, indeed, locomotives were rounded, panelled and smoothed. With the E 18, the reasonable question arises of how much of that was engineering and how much was the taste of the time.

Both played a part. Air resistance grows with the square of speed; at 150 km/h it’s a noticeable share of the running resistance, while at 80 km/h it barely registers. A smoother front and closed transitions therefore achieved something measurable there. At the same time the effect was limited, because a train of coaches with gangways, roof fittings and bogies followed behind the locomotive, causing the lion’s share of the resistance.

The second reason has been openly stated: representation. Express locomotives were flagships. A machine running in front of the country’s highest-value train was meant to look the part too. That logic, incidentally, has never disappeared – it explains to this day why long-distance vehicles are treated differently in design terms than shunting or freight locomotives.

For spotters, this is more than a footnote. Styling is the fastest identifying feature for vehicles of this era, because it follows the task: the faster the intended duty, the smoother the vehicle. An angular classic electric with openly exposed technology was meant for passenger and freight trains, a rounded one for high-value travel.

In practice that means: if you’re standing in a museum in front of a row of historic electrics, sort them by surface first. Smooth and closed means express, open and technical means mixed traffic. Then you count the axles, and only at the end do you read the markings to confirm.

Common mix-ups

The angular contemporaries are found under Class E 17 and Class E 16.

Conclusion

The E 18 is the vehicle that shows locomotive building is also design. Technically it was ahead of its time; visually it shaped the image of the fast German electric for decades. Anyone wanting to see it today follows the dates of collections such as the DB Museum Koblenz – and should make thorough use of the opportunity, because it doesn’t come often.