DRG Class E 94

The Class E 94 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, nicknamed Deutsches Krokodil in the west and Eisenschwein in the east, was a class of six-axle heavy electric locomotives for freight service, in use from 1940 until 1995. It was planned as the successor to the Class E 93 and built for heavy grades such as the Franconian Forest Railway and the Geislinger Steige. After the annexation of Austria in 1938 it was quickly recognised as the ideal locomotive for the difficult Alpine lines. AEG and Siemens delivered 146 of these war electric locomotives, also called KEL 1, by the end of the Second World War, numbered E 94 001 to 159 with gaps. The type was approved for 90 kilometres per hour, and in 1940 each locomotive cost 470,500 reichsmarks. After the war 44 locomotives went to the Austrian Federal Railways, which ran them as Class 1020 and retired them by 1995.