DR Class E 95

Updated: August 2026 – Six powered axles, plus carrying axles at each end, exposed coupling rods and a body whose purpose you can read at a glance: the Class E 95 is a heavy mountain-line freight locomotive from the early days of German electrification. It remained a small series – and that’s exactly what makes it interesting to anyone who knows their vehicles.

What is the Class E 95?

The Class E 95 is a heavy electric freight locomotive of the Deutsche Reichsbahn with six powered axles and additional carrying axles at each end of the vehicle. It was built from the late 1920s in a very small number, designed for freight traffic over electrified mountain lines on the Silesian network.

Like all electric locomotives of that era, it works with coupling-rod drive: the traction motor drives a jackshaft, from where a connecting rod transmits power to one driving axle, and side rods distribute it to the rest. Today the class is museum stock; it is no longer found in regular service.

Reading the wheel arrangement: the key to this class

For veteran electric locomotives, the wheel arrangement isn’t a detail for specialists – it’s the fastest identification feature there is. For the E 95 it reads 1’Co+Co1’. Broken down, that means:

Symbol	Meaning	What you see on the vehicle
1	A single carrying axle	A smaller wheel without a coupling rod at the end of the vehicle
C	Three driving axles in one group	Three equally sized wheels, connected by coupling rods
o	Individual axle drive	Drive per axle rather than a shared drive shaft
’ (apostrophe)	Pivoting mounting	The group can steer itself relative to the frame
+ (plus)	Articulated connection	Two running-gear groups, not one continuous frame

Once you’ve understood this notation, you can read it off any veteran vehicle – and it separates classes that would otherwise be easy to confuse. The full vehicle number with its type-code prefix is covered in more detail in the guide to reading the UIC number.

How to identify an E 95 in the field

Anyone who gets into the habit of the sequence drive type – axles – body – markings identifies unfamiliar vehicles reliably too. The guide to identifying locomotive classes describes exactly this approach.

Where you can realistically find the E 95 – and how to photograph it

Regular service is out of the question. That leaves the museum route: collections such as the Saxon Railway Museum Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf, vehicle shows and occasional presentations. Because this is a small series, the pool of possible locations is small and the research correspondingly manageable.

For the photo itself, with a vehicle this large:

• Keep your distance and avoid a long focal length up close. An eight-axle locomotive needs room in the frame; a wide angle from close up distorts the proportions so badly that the wheel arrangement becomes unreadable.
• Look for a side-on profile. Only from the side can driving and carrying axles be cleanly separated – and that’s exactly what matters for this class.
• Photograph the running gear separately. A second shot showing just wheels, rods and jackshaft is often worth more for later identification than the full picture.
• Follow the operator’s instructions. On museum grounds, tracks, pits and workshop areas are off-limits unless explicitly opened up. Vehicles can be moved there too.

Which heritage societies publish dates and where the research pays off is summed up in the guide to heritage railways and special trips.

What sets a mountain locomotive apart from a flatland machine

The brief “heavy freight traffic over mountain lines” leads to design decisions you can see on the vehicle. Three of them can be understood without a data sheet.

First, the number of powered axles. Tractive effort comes from friction between wheel and rail. The more axles that are powered, the more of the vehicle’s weight is available for that friction. Six driving axles are therefore no gimmick, but the direct answer to long gradients with heavy trains.

Second, the carrying axles. A machine with six coupled driving axles has a very long rigid wheelbase. Carrying axles at the ends improve running through curves and relieve the flanges of the outer driving axles. Mountain lines are full of tight curves – so the carrying axles are a consequence of the route, not decoration.

Third, the articulated running gear. Two running-gear groups that can steer against each other get a long vehicle through curves that a continuous rigid frame would only manage with heavy wear. You find exactly this principle in several veteran electric locomotives of the era – it’s a feature of the vehicle generation, not of a single class.

Anyone who runs through these three points when looking at an unfamiliar veteran locomotive can usually already say what it was built for – long before consulting a source.

Common mix-ups

The most obvious mix-up is the Class E 94, which likewise has six powered axles but no carrying axles. Clearly different in proportion are the DR Class E 77 with its two-part running gear and the four-axle general-purpose machine Class E 44.

Verdict

The E 95 is a vehicle you work out through its wheel arrangement. Six driving axles for tractive effort, carrying axles for smooth running, coupling-rod drive as the technology of its time – and together a machine built for a narrowly defined area of operation, which is why it remained a small series. Anyone who notices the smaller wheels at the ends has reliably told it apart from the E 94.