The class 95 was one of the heaviest and most powerful tank locomotives that the Deutsche Reichsbahn procured in its history. Since it was originally ordered by the Prussian State Railways as the T 20, it can often be found under this designation. The first ten examples were initially listed as class 77 until 1926 and only then reclassified as class 95. It was developed to haul heavy freight trains on main lines with a lot of gradients and to convert routes with rack and pinion to adhesion operation.
In order to be able to provide enough traction on the inclines, a very heavy and powerful boiler was placed on a chassis with a 2-10-2T wheel arrangement. This resulted in an adhesive weight that was greater than that of most ten-coupled tender locomotives. Since the steep stretches often had tight curve radii, both carrying axles were combined with the respective outer set of driving wheels to form a Krauss-Helmholtz bogie. The remaining axles could not be shifted sideways, but the wheel flanges of the middle driving wheel set were weakened. Thanks to the additional equipment with a Riggenbach-type counter-pressure brake, it was possible to brake on steep gradients without wearing out or heating up the wheel tyres. For the first time, gradients of up to seven percent could be overcome without a rack with just a few cars.
The locomotive was able to pull trains weighing 430 tonnes at 25 km/h on gradients of 2.5 percent, which was almost as good as the performance of the sixteen-coupled Bavarian Gt 2x4/4. In tests on the level, a little more than 2,000 tonnes could be pulled at 50 km/h, but in reality this was reserved for the heavy tender locomotives.
95 0027 in June 1979 in Saalfeld
Werner & Hansjörg Brutzer
All of the 45 locomotives built survived the war. Only 14 of these made it to the Bundesbahn, which made them a minor class. In the beginning they were partly used as pusher locomotives on ramps, but the last of them was already retired in 1958. The 31 vehicles of the Reichsbahn were used on the low mountain range as powerful draft horses which were indispensable for a long time. 24 of these were converted to oil firing between the late 1960's and early 1970's and designated 9500. The rest became 9510. Their service life ended in 1981 with the Sonneberg-Eisfeld route.