BR 18.2

The Baden IVf was the result of a quest of the Badische Staatsbahn to find a successor for the weak express train locomotives type IIc and IId. J.A.Maffei had the best offer for the Baden Railways, they offered a 2'C1'h4v steam locomotive. Maffei built three locomotives of this type for the Baden Railways. The next series of 32 locomotives was built at the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe. In total there are 35 locomotives built between 1907 and 1913. The Bad. IVf was a locomotive which was constructed different than the other locomotives. The construction existed of a welded frame with an axle layout of 2'C1', these axle layout was used since 1886 in Northern-America and was indicated as "Pacific". The locomotives were equiped with driving wheels of 1800 mm.

The locomotives had their service at the Rhinevalley line Mannheim-Karlsruhe-Basel and at the Black Forest railway line.

The locomotives were characterising for the locomotive building in Southern Germany, especially how it was done by Maffei. They used often a boiler who was constructed outside the frame, a cabin with windshields, an upholstery of dome and sand boxes and a cone shaped smokebox door.

The maintenance facilities complained that the locomotive had often damage to the transmission, this was caused by high number of revolutions on the Rhine line. This high number of revolution was caused by the small driving wheels.

In service at the DRG

The DRG took over 22 of the 35 locomotives and gave them the indication BR 18.2. The locomotives got the following numbers: 18 201 (built in 1907), 18 211-18 217 (built in 1909), 18 231-18 238 (built in 1912) and 18 251-18 256 (built in 1913). The locomotives were set aside in 1930. But the Bad. IVf will be going into history as the first German Pacific steam locomotive.