The company of Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. was known for manufacturing very robust small shunting and narrow-gauge tank locomotives. These engines mostly went to industrial plants, but also to some larger companies. An example of this was the “Alexandra” built in 1901 for the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway. It was a six-coupled, standard-gauge shunter and bore the works number 911 from Barclay. It was also described by the Locomotive Magazine as being extremely stable and had a copper firebox, the material of which being manufactured to the quality standards in the production of artillery shells.

At the Danish State Railways, the class F comprised three different types of tank locomotives with a 0-6-0T wheel arrangement. The four examples of type I were originally tender locomotives built in 1873 by the British company Hawthorn, Leslie & Company for the Jysk-Fyrenske Jernbaner. In 1889 and 1890 they were converted into tank locomotives. Only eight examples belonged to type III, which were built by SLM in Winterthur in 1917 and delivered to Denmark after the end of the war. They were the only superheated steam engines in the series.

Type II accounted for by far the largest share with 120 units. It was unusual that these locomotives were built by different manufacturers in different countries over a very long period of time. From 1898, ten pieces were made by an Italian company Costruzioni Meccaniche di Saronno, which belonged to Maschinenfabrik Esslingen. Another 20 units from Breda (Italy), Hanomag and Henschel (Germany) and Smith, Mygind & Hüttemeier (Denmark) followed until 1903. Two further batches of 30 and 45 pieces each followed between 1909 and 1923 by Borsig and Hanomag (Germany), Frichs (Denmark) and Les Ateliers Métallurgiques Tubize (Belgium). Another 15 engines from Frichs followed in 1949.

The fact that 51 years after the first deliveries new locomotives were built in a technically almost unchanged design shows that even small tank locomotives with saturated steam were sufficient for shunting and that no more complex machines were required. Even the Allan valve gear was retained, which at that point had actually been out of date for a long time. The only changes were more modern buffers and a larger coal bunker. In the meantime, the existing locomotives had been fitted with air brakes instead of steam brakes. Nevertheless, they were phased out in the 1960s, since diesel locomotives were now available for shunting.

The three-axle class 80 and the four-axle class 81 were designed as standard locomotives in order to be able to replace the various Länderbahn types in shunting service. In order to be able to design the boiler as strong as possible while maintaining an axle load of 18 tonnes, lightweight construction was used in all possible places and the driving wheels were only designed with a diameter of 1,100 mm. After the war, the locomotives of the Bundesbahn were retired by 1965 and the locomotives of the Reichsbahn were replaced by diesel locomotives in the early 1960s. A few locomotives were sold to industry on both sides and some were used until about 1980.

A variety of three-axle freight tank locomotives from the state railways were grouped together in the class 89, which were now primarily used for shunting. In 1931 it was decided to develop a modern locomotive of this type based on the principles of standard locomotives. Due to the reduced axle load of just over 15 tons, the resulting class 89⁰ weighed in at a service weight of only around 45 tonnes and had an overall length of less than ten meters, making it the smallest of all made standard locomotives. Welding technology had already been used at various points in its construction, which also led to a reduction in weight.

In contrast to the other modern locomotives, BMAG used saturated steam for the first three units delivered in 1934 for cost reasons. These were given the numbers 89 001 to 003, since the Prussian T 8, originally classified as 89⁰, had already been handed over to private operators by this time.

Henschel delivered three more in the same year as superheated versions, which were given the numbers 89 004 to 006. In the following, both versions were used for comparison with each other, with superheated steam proving its superiority in every respect. The difference can be seen most clearly in the indicated power, which was calculated with 320 and 525 hp. The Henschel design was thus selected as the version for all other angines, but ultimately only road numbers 89 007 to 010 were procured in 1937.

89 005 as superheated variant

Die Lokomotive, June 1936

The ten locomotives were based in the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin for most of the time and all survived the war. Subsequently, five of them were in Polish territory, after which they continued to be used by the PKP. Three more had to be handed over to the Soviet Union, so that ultimately only road numbers 89 005 and 89 008 remained with the Reichsbahn of the GDR. The 008 was the last to be retired in 1968 and has been preserved to this day.

In 1877, a seven-man commission was set up in the colony of Natal for the administration of the port of Durban, which was to coordinate the further development of the systems and processes for the increasing transport volume. Locomotives from the Natal Government Railways were previously used on the port's tracks when required, but no own locomotives existed. For this reason, a single shunting locomotive with a 0-6-0T wheel arrangement was ordered from Hunslet in Leeds, which was delivered in 1879. It was named after John Milne, an engineer who played an important role in the port's history.

The locomotive weighed almost 20 tonnes, carried a maximum of 1,680 pounds of coal in the driver's cab and held 450 gallons of water in a saddle tank. It had 36-inch wheels and a very short wheelbase. It was in service in the port of Durban for many years and was only supplemented by a second locomotive around the turn of the century. It is no longer possible to determine exactly when its service life ended. However, this must have been no later than 1912, since it no longer appeared in the lists of the South African Railways and must therefore have been either sold or scrapped before then.

The Port of Durban's first shunter was procured by the Port Commission in 1879, but that commission was abolished in 1894. The tasks were later transferred to a seven-member commission, which belonged to the government of Natal. This again ordered a single six-coupled tank locomotive. This was also imported from Leeds, but this time by Hudswell, Clarke and Co.

The six-coupled engine was named after Edward Innes, who was the first Durban port engineer appointed by the old commission from 1881 until his death in 1887. It was a commercial tank locomotive without any special adjustments for the customer. In contrast to the “John Milne” it had side water tanks and significantly larger reserves, but was about the same in terms of empty weight. When the inventories of the three former colonial railways were recorded in 1912, the “Edward Innes” was still included. However, as it was listed as an internal port shunter, it did not appear in the South African Railways numbering plan. It was used until 1923 and was then immediately scrapped. It outlived the other two engines that were ordered after it: in 1902 a four-coupled locomotive with a saddle tank and named “Congella” and in 1904 a six-coupled locomotive from Hunslet named “Sir Albert”.

In 1902, the Port Authority of East London in South Africa had two shunting locomotives built by Hunslet in Leeds for the port facilities. The track systems there had a gauge of 3 ft 6 in, which was used on mainline railways throughout the Cape of Good Hope. These were light tank locomotives with a 0-6-0ST wheel arrangement and very small wheels and a comparatively long wheelbase. The axle load was unevenly distributed, amounting to 8 LT 2 cwt, 6 LT 5 cwt and 5 LT 7 cwt for the first, second and third axle respectively with the curb weight. Even when the locomotive was loaded, the distribution of the axle loads should have hardly changed, since the water on the boiler was in a saddle tank and only 15 cwt of coal could be carried at the back.

As they were the only locos in East London Harbour, they were numbered 1 and 2. When the port railways were incorporated into the Cape Government Railways on January 1, 1909, the locomotives were given the numbers 1027 and 1028. Just two years later, when the South African Union was founded, the locomotives came to the newly founded South African Railways. The company numbers were soon preceded by a zero, which meant that they were to be considered obsolete, but nevertheless remained in use. They remained so for more than two decades, until finally being phased out in the 1930s.