The term Prussian state railways (German: Preußische Staatseisenbahnen) encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia. The words "state railways" are not capitalized because Prussia did not have an independent railway administration; rather the individual railway organisations were under the control of the Ministry for Trade and Commerce or its later offshoot, the Ministry for Public Works.
The official name of the Prussian rail network was Königlich Preußische Staatseisenbahnen (K.P.St.E., "Royal Prussian State Railways") until 1896, Königlich Preußische und Großherzoglich Hessische Staatseisenbahn (K.P.u.G.H.St.E., "Royal Prussian and Grand-Ducal Hessian State Railways") until the end of the First World War, and Preußische Staatsbahn (P.St.B., "Prussian State Railway") until its nationalization in 1920. A common mistake is the use of the abbreviation K.P.E.V. in supposed reference to a mythical "Royal Prussian Railway Administration" (Königlich Preußischen Eisenbahn-Verwaltung). No such entity ever existed and Prussian railway cars acquired the K.P.E.V. logo apparently through an error originating in their Cologne division.
Overview
The first Prussian railways were private concerns, beginning with the Berlin-Potsdam Railway in 1838 and which was therefore known as the "Stammbahn" (roughly translates as 'original line'). The state of Prussia first financed railways around 1850. These were the Royal Westphalian Railway Company (Königlich-Westfälische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) and the Prussian Eastern Railway or Prussian Ostbahn (Preußische Ostbahn). In 1875 they funded two more important new railways: the Prussian Northern Railway or Prussian Nordbahn (Preußsische Nordbahn) and the Marienfelde–Zossen–Jüterbog Military Railway.
After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, various private, commercially oriented lines were brought under Prussian control through annexation, outright purchase or the provision of financial support depending on their situation. Between 1880 and 1889 most of the private lines were nationalised thanks to Prussia's strong financial situation making it the biggest company in Germany in 1907.
Prussia nationalized its railways in 1880 in an effort both to lower rates on freight service and to equalize those rates among shippers. Instead of lowering rates as far as possible, the government ran the railways as a profitmaking endeavour, and the railway profits became a major source of revenue for the state. The nationalization of the railways slowed the economic development of Prussia because the state favoured the relatively backward agricultural areas in its railway building. Moreover, the railway surpluses substituted for the development of an adequate tax system.
The individual railways acted as if they were independent operations and developed their own rolling stock. The extent of this independence is illustrated in an 1893 street plan of Berlin that shows the Silesian station (Berlin's departure point for the Ostbahn since 1882) and a few hundred yards apart from each other the main workshops for the Royal Berlin Division and the Royal Bromberg Division of the Ostbahn.
At the end of the First World War the network of the state-owned Prussian railways had a total length of almost 37,500 kilometres. The history of the Prussian state railways ended in 1920 with the nationalization and absorption of the various German state railways into the Imperial Railways (Reichseisenbahn), later the Deutsche Reichsbahn.
Rolling stock
For a detailed listing see the List of Prussian locomotives and railbuses
Steam Locomotives
Origin and Classification
For the most part the locomotives listed in the Prussian classification system were not built under state direction, but independently procured by the individual railway companies. In many cases they were only brought into the Prussian railway inventory when the ownership of their respective railway organisations was later transferred to the state authorities.
This explains their unusually high numbers with about 80 classes and variants, the overwhelming majority of which were constructed between 1877 and 1895. In 1889, Prussian standards were laid down in order that the number of classes could be reduced in the future.