It was the Königlich Württembergische Staats-Eisenbahnen’s policy to gradually reassign older locomotives to less important services, which meant they were put to use on secondary lines, in maintenance trains or for construction services. When locomotives were in short supply after the first world war, all the locomotives that were in good condition were needed for the mainline services, which meant that the locomotives operating on the secondary lines were very outdated. That’s why the headquarters of the Württembergische Staats-Eisenbahnen (it wasn’t called “Königlich Württembergische Staats-Eisenbahnen” any more at that time) decided to order a series of 30 new locomotives from Maschinenfabrik Esslingen for use on its secondary lines. The intention was to fundamentally update secondary line services with these new locomotives, which meant that they had to be light (a maximum axle load of 12.5 tons was planned) but have adequate tractive power. It was only possible to meet these requirements if the locomotive had five-link couplings. The new locomotives also had to handle curve radii as small as 100 m and achieve the required speed of 50 km/h. The result was a superheated steam locomotive with a five-link coupling, 1,150 mm driver wheel diameter and a maximum axle load of 13 tons – in the end, they were slightly heavier than originally planned. After one year of construction, the first 5 locomotives were delivered in February 1921, and the last of the 30 ordered locomotives arrived in June 1921. At that time, a Tn cost 500,000 Reichsmarks. In December 1922, 2 replacement boilers were ordered for the Tn. They were delivered on 1 September and cost 19.8 million Reichsmarks each as a result of inflation in the German Reich. When they had completed their test runs, the 30 locomotives were immediately assigned to the Württemberg’s secondary lines to replace the outdated locomotives. One of the Tn’s special features was that it incorporated a relatively rare small-tube superheater, which generated interest for the Schmidt Heißdampfgesellschaft, a superheater manufacturing company. Extensive test runs on the Rottweil – Villingen and Rottweil – Spaichlingen lines in May 1923 were attended by some of the company’s engineers. The small-tube superheater proved to be effective, though the large-tube superheater turned out to be the more popular choice. All 30 Tn locomotives were taken over by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and given the road numbers 94 101 to 94 130. However, the maximum axle load on the DRG’s secondary lines had been increased to 15 tons in the meantime, so the Tn was replaced on secondary lines by other locomotives and predominantly used as switcher. This is also documented by the locomotives’ assignments in 1925. At that time, they were based in Stuttgart-Rosenstein (21 locomotives), Freudenstadt (4 locomotives) and Geislingen (5 locomotives).  

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