BR 03.0-1

The exact location of all BR 03 steam engines after the war is not precisely known. But there were 149 steam engines BR 03 located in the western zones, 86 in the Sovjet zone and 1 steam engine in Austria. The 03 174 was already set aside in 1939, and in 1945 the 03 217 was also set aside because of serious damage. The remaining 60 steam engines were mostly located in Poland, and other steam engines were in the former Sovjet Union. Approximately 40 steam engines were taken into service by the Polish railway company as the series Pm 2.

After taken out of service five damaged steam engines and after the returning of the 03 113 from Austria the DB had 145 steam engines BR 03 at their disposal. The DB removed the big smoke deflectors and replaced them by "Witte" smoke deflectors. The air pump was moved to the center of the locomotive (from locomotive 03 123-298 the locomotives were delivered to the DRG already with the pump in the center of the locomotive).

In the first time the steam engines were stationed in the Bw's Hamburg-Altona, Köln Deutzerfeld, Osnabrück Hbf (more than 20 locomotives), Bremen Hbf, Hannover Hbf, Köln Bbf, Ludwigshafen, Rheine and Wiesbaden. The steam engines which were located in Osnabrück had their service in the long runs of Hamburg-Altona-Köln (478 km) or Hamburg-Altona-Düsseldorf (421 km), from 1957/58 these service were done by the steam engines BR 01.10. In 1957 steam engines BR 03 were also stationed in the Bw Saarbrücken, and from 1958 again in Braunschweig and from 1959 also in Mönchengladbach. Before that, the services of the BR 03 were ended in Köln Bbf, and from 1960/61 in Bw Hannover Hbf, Ludwigshafen and Osnabrück Hbf.

The first steam engine which was taken out of service was the 03 048 which was damaged by an accident, this one was followed by a few other locomotives. In Oktober 1963 the DB had 134 BR 03 steam engines in service. In the meantime 12 steam engines were moved to the Bw Ulm were they replaced the S 3/6 steam engines. Due to continuing electrifying of the mainlines and the use of more diesel locomotives and diesel trainsets, the BR 03 steam engines disappeared from Köln Deutzerfeld in 1966. In Rheine the locomotives were replaced by steam engines BR 01 with new boilers. And from June 1967 the steam engines BR 03 were not anymore subject to large overhauls. In 1968 the DB renumbered only 40 steam engines BR 03 to the series 003. In Osnabrück disappeaed the BR 03 from september 1968, because of the electrifying of the relation between Hamburg and Osnabrück. In Osnabrück were only the oil burning BR 01.10 steam engines and new V 200 diesel locomotives maintained.

Due to a shortage of locomotives, the Bw Hamburg-Altona had to returned to coal burning steam engines for a short time. But also here, the 003 wasn't playing a worth mentioned role in the passenger services. Slowly the 003 disappeared from the tracks, only commuter trains and the so-called "eilzüge" were pulled by these locomotives. In the winter of 1970/71 for the last time the Bw Ulm brought into service 6 steam engines 003. The steam engines were running local trains on the lines Ulm-Friedrichshafen, Ulm-Crailsheim-Lauda-Wertheim/Würzburg, Crailsheim-Backnang and Crailsheim-Heilbronn.

In the summer of 1971 there were only four locomotives 003 in service, the 003 088, 131, 268 and the 276. These were running in the services to Friedrichshafen and Schelklingen, as well as in the express train D 599 between Friedrichshafen and Lindau.

The last steam engine BR 003, the 003 088 was taken out of service in December 1972.