The Alsace-Lorraine Class G 8.1 was a superheated, goods train, steam locomotive with four driving axles, and was based on the Prussian G 8.1.
The Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine (Reichseisenbahnen in Elsaß-Lothringen) received a total of 137 G 8.1 engines between 1913 and 1919, of which eleven were built by Henschel and the rest by the Grafenstaden.
After the First World War ten locomotives were left in Germany and were later given the numbers 55 2946, 3338–3340, 4275-4279 and 4285 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn.
One, 5157 was sold to the Saarland Railways in March 1935,[1][2] only a few months before the Territory of the Saar Basin was transferred from France to Germany.
After the end of the war, 72 Prussian G 8.1 engines remained in Alsace-Lorraine and went into the fleet of the AL, the successor to the Reichseisenbahnen.