The Class D III engines of the

Royal Bavarian State Railways The Royal Bavarian State Railways (''Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen'' or ''K.Bay.Sts.B.'') was the state railway company for the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded in 1844. The organisation grew into the second largest of the German ...

(''Königlich Bayerische Staatsbahn'') were

tank locomotives A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locomot ...

designed for shunting and ''

Vizinalbahn Bavarian branch lines comprised nearly half the total railway network in Bavaria, a state in the southeastern Germany that was a kingdom in the days of the German Empire. The construction era for branch lines lasted from 1872, when the first rout ...

'' service.

Georg Krauss Georg may refer to: * ''Georg'' (film), 1997 *Georg (musical), Estonian musical * Georg (given name) * Georg (surname) * , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker See also * George (disambiguation) George may refer to: People * George (given name) * ...

had exhibited a locomotive of this type, which had been developed on the same design principles as the

Bavarian B VII The Bavarian B VII was an experimental locomotive with the Royal Bavarian State Railways (''Königlich Bayerische Staatsbahn''). These turf-fired locomotives were the first ones delivered by Krauss to the state railways in Bavaria. They resemble ...

, at the

1873 Vienna World Exposition ) , building = Rotunda , area = 233 Ha , invent = , visitors = 7,255,000 , organized = , cnt = , org = , biz = , country = Austria-Hungary , city ...

and sold it to the Bebra-Hanau Railway. The Bavarian State Railway also decided to procured the locomotive and order six for the same duties as those of the Maffei-built Bavarian D I class, which had been introduced in 1871. The D I was equipped with an outside

Allan valve gear The Stephenson valve gear or Stephenson link or shifting link is a simple design of valve gear that was widely used throughout the world for various kinds of steam engines. It is named after Robert Stephenson but was invented by his employees. ...

and an enclosed driver's cab. Its coal and water tanks jutted out over the rear driving axle. The locomotives were used partly for branch line service and partly for light shunting duties ''inter alia'' in Munich and Ingolstadt, and also at Lindau working with the ferries on Lake Constance. Because the engines could not attain the performance of the Bavarian D IV due to their simpler design, they were retired between 1894 and 1897. One engine was transferred to the Röthenbach–Weiler branch line and one to the Bavarian Cement Works at Marienstein, the rest were scrapped. One engine was sold, the remainder had been retired and scrapped by 1897.