Prototype: German Federal Railroad (DB) class V 160, regular production version. B-B wheel arrangement, built starting in 1964. Use: Passenger and freight trains.

Model: The locomotive has a built-in digital decoder for DCC, Selectrix, Trix Systems, and conventional operation. It also has a 5-pole motor. 4 axles powered. Traction tires. The headlights will work in analog operation and can be controlled digitally. Length over the buffers 100 mm / 3-15/16".
 

The end of steam motive power looming on the horizon as well as demand for greater transport capabilities prompted the DB at the end of the Fifties to order a general-purpose locomotive of medium performance (1,900 horsepower) as part of its expanded program of locomotive types. The following design features were requested: a single-motor, four-axle locomotive with trucks and with diesel hydraulic power transmission, a maximum speed of at least 120 km/h / 75 mph, and sufficient train heating capacity for an express train of 10 cars. During test operations with ten prototypes it was discovered that different components such as the cardan shafts had been designed too small. This was improved from 1964 on with the construction of the regular production locomotives with reinforced components. In addition, the ends of road number V 160 010, which were easier to build, were adopted to save costs and the welded steel lightweight construction was eliminated. The engine room with the drive system, cooling system, and oil-fired Benson boiler for train heating was located between the two soundproof engineer's cabs. The engine room was accessed by a side corridor. Power transmission was done with a Voith fluid transmission, which had to be developed from scratch for motors of this performance class. Since the regular production units had a heavy 1,900 horsepower motor installed in them, the weight of the locomotive increased by about three metric tons. With an axle load of 20 metric tons, using the V 160 on branch lines was practically out of the question. Since enough of the V 100 locomotives were available for this use in the meantime, this was no longer a problem. By 1969, a total of 214 regular production class V 160 (from 1968 on: class 216) had been delivered by the firms Krupp, Henschel, Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz (KHD), Krauss-Maffei, and Maschinenbau AG Kiel (MaK), of them about half with m.u. controls. Over time more improvements were made to overcome noise by additional insulation of the engineer's cabs, elastic mounting of the motors, and the installation of more effective noise mufflers. The regular production class 216 locomotives left the DB in February of 2004 with the last five units being placed into storage. Seven units were equipped with Scharfenberg couplers as the class 226 and earned an existence as ICE tow locomotives. In addition, the steam boilers for train heating had to make way for Webasto standing heating system and appropriate adjustment weights. The last two of these locomotives modified in this way were retired in July of 2005. Several class 216 units began a second career on private railroads or for construction firms (chiefly in Italy).