DB Class 152

Updated: August 2026 – Four axles, an angular front, a heavy freight train on the hook: in many cases that’s a Class 152 in front of you – the freight variant of the EuroSprinter family from Siemens Mobility, manufacturer designation ES64F. This page shows you how to identify it beyond doubt, how it fits into the German classification system, and where you’ll realistically encounter it.

What is the Siemens ES64F (Class 152)?

The Siemens ES64F is a four-axle electric locomotive for heavy freight services, built between 1997 and 2001. Deutsche Bahn took delivery of 170 machines and runs them as Class 152 with numbers 152 001 to 152 170. They’re rated for 140 km/h, around 6,400 kW continuous power output, and operation under 15 kV / 16.7 Hz AC.

The manufacturer designation is self-explanatory once you know the key: ES stands for EuroSprinter, 64 for the power output of 6,400 kW, F for Fracht (freight). The same family also produced the universal variant ES64U, from which Class 182 among others emerged, as well as the multi-system locomotive ES64F4, which runs in Germany as Class 189. At the start of the line stood the test locomotive ES 64 P, on which Siemens trialled its AC drive technology.

How to identify a 152 in a few seconds

The order matters: features you can see from 200 metres come first, details later.

If you’d rather work systematically than case by case, the general guide to identifying rolling-stock classes helps – it explains in which order to work through features so you don’t get lost in detail.

Why the number 152 is no accident

The German classification scheme has used three digits since 1968. Before that, electric locomotives carried E-numbers: the E 10 became the 110, the E 40 the 140, the E 94 the 194. Ever since, the first digit tells you which vehicle category you’re looking at – 1xx stands for electric locomotives, 2xx for diesel locomotives, and the higher hundreds for multiple units and push-pull driving trailers.

Within the electric locomotives, the tens block is meaningful. The 15x group was traditionally reserved for heavy freight locomotives: Class 151 and Class 155 had occupied this range since the 1970s and 1980s. When a new heavy freight locomotive arrived in the late 1990s, the free number 152 was the obvious choice.

In practice that means: the first three digits of the vehicle number alone tell you the category and rough use. The full twelve-digit UIC number on the side wall additionally contains keeper and country codes – how to read it is explained in the article on the UIC number and its check digit.

Where the 152 stands in railway operations

As a pure AC locomotive for freight traffic, the 152 follows the flow of freight, not the passenger timetable. Its runs end at the latest at system boundaries such as Emmerich am Rhein, where traffic heading towards the Netherlands switches to other vehicles. That gives a simple rule: the more block trains and transfer workings a line sees, the higher the hit rate.

Location	Chance of a sighting	Why
Large marshalling yards	high	train formation, locomotive changes and long dwell times
Freight corridors and trunk lines	high	block trains run here around the clock on schedule
Hub stations with through freight traffic	medium to high	through movements often without a stop, but regular
Purely local-service stations	low	little freight traffic, little opportunity
High-speed lines	very low	freight locomotives rated for 140 km/h don’t run there on schedule

Anyone wanting to make freight traffic more predictable works with live data rather than guesswork: the guide to the freight train radar for Germany shows which sources can be combined for this. For choosing a location itself, the guide to spotting at marshalling yards is worthwhile – vehicle density is highest there. In the Ruhr area, Duisburg-Hochfeld Süd concentrates exactly this traffic.

Photo tips for a locomotive that rarely stands still

Freight locomotives are photographed differently to passenger locomotives: they stop at platforms less often, pass through more frequently and often stand in places that aren’t publicly accessible. On a gradient like the Geislinger Steige, by contrast, they’re slow enough for relaxed work.

Which focal length makes sense for this is covered in the guide to the best telephoto lens for railway photography. And because freight locomotives turn up irregularly, a tidy sightings log is especially valuable here: it shows you at a glance which numbers you’re still missing.

Common mix-ups

Conclusion

Class 152 is one of those locomotives you learn properly once and then recognise everywhere: four axles, angular EuroSprinter front, a freight train behind it. Its manufacturer designation ES64F reveals its design purpose, its class number its place in the German system. It stays interesting mainly because its area of operation in freight traffic is less predictable than the clockface pattern of passenger services – anyone wanting to catch it has to know the lie of the land.