Class E 32

Updated: August 2026 – When coupling rods run along the outside of an electric locomotive just like on a steam engine, you’re looking at a machine from the early days of electrification. The Class E 32 is a textbook example: three coupled driving axles, one carrying axle each front and rear, power transmission via a jackshaft. This page shows you how to recognise it and how to place it.

What is Class E 32?

The E 32 is an electric locomotive of the classic generation with the wheel arrangement 1’C1’, procured from the mid-1920s for the Deutsche Reichsbahn and designed for the German railway electrification system of 15 kV and 16.7 Hz. Power transmission runs via a rod drive: the motor drives a jackshaft, from where externally mounted coupling rods transmit the power to the three coupled driving axles. At the Deutsche Bundesbahn the class was later listed as Class 132.

That places it in a vehicle group that this database groups together under the UIC type code 97: electric classic, shunting and departmental machines. The code says nothing about power or size, only about the role – it separates these locomotives from today’s main-line machines, which are listed under type code 91.

Identification: rods, axles, pantograph

Classic electrics aren’t identified by their front but by their running gear. Three observations are enough.

If you want to practise the systematic approach in general, the guide to identifying classes helps. How the twelve-digit vehicle number is put together and what its first digits reveal is explained in the article on the UIC number and its check digit.

Placing it: the classic generation in comparison

Early electrics differ from today’s machines not in details but fundamentally. The table shows what to look out for when comparing.

Feature	Classic electric like the E 32	Post-war electric	Modern main-line locomotive
Power transmission	jackshaft and coupling rods	individual-axle drive	three-phase individual-axle drive
Carrying axles	present	mostly absent	absent
Pantograph	scissors	scissors or single-arm	single-arm
Body	angular, tall, riveted	angular, welded	flat, panelled
Current status	museum	partly museum, partly in service	regular service

The break between the first and second column is the really fascinating thing about this vehicle generation – and it can be shown on a single vehicle: the Class E 44 was the first to do without rod drive and carrying axles on a larger scale. Anyone who sees both machines side by side understands the development immediately. At the heavy end of the classic generation stands the Class E 94, at the small end the Class E 60, procured for shunting duties.

Where you’ll find an E 32 today

There are no scheduled workings. Preserved machines stand in museums and collections such as the Bavarian Railway Museum; they’re moved at vehicle displays, anniversaries and occasional special trains. For you that means: the date determines everything else.

There’s one particularity to add. An operational electric needs overhead line – unlike a steam or diesel locomotive, it can’t run on just any heritage line. Historic electric locomotives are therefore more often exhibited than run, and when they do run, it’s on electrified lines of the general network. You’ll find dates via the sources described in the heritage railway guide and in the article on finding special trains and special workings.

What else the type code 97 groups together

Code 97 isn’t a pure museum drawer. It groups together electric locomotives that don’t belong to today’s main-line fleet – and alongside classic machines like the E 32, that means above all electric shunting and departmental locomotives. Anyone who knows this group also correctly places vehicles they might encounter in everyday life.

Typical for electric shunting machines is the centre cab: a cab in the middle of the vehicle, flanked left and right by lower bonnets. The reason is practical – shunting constantly involves changing direction of travel, and from the centre the crew has a clear view both ways. Main-line locomotives don’t need that and instead fit cabs at the ends.

A second feature of this group is a low axle count combined with high weight: shunting locomotives need adhesive weight to start heavy groups of wagons, but not top speed. With classic machines, rod drive is often added, which is unproblematic at low speeds.

In practice that means: if you see a centre cab, few axles and a stocky body on an electric locomotive, you’re very likely looking at a vehicle from this group – for instance of the type of the Class E 63. And one warning applies especially there: in shunting areas, vehicles are moved frequently, at short notice and without announcement. Such areas are operational railway land and always off limits for observers.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

Conclusion

Class E 32 shows the moment when electric traction was still implemented with the means of steam locomotive building: a motor in the body, a jackshaft, coupling rods, carrying axles for guidance. Identifying it takes seconds, because all of that has vanished today. Finding it, on the other hand, takes planning – as a museum vehicle it lives by dates, not by timetables.