Like the superheated locomotive, the Prussian T 12, the T 11 evolved from the T 9.3 in order to replace the older, four-coupled tank engines on the Berlin Stadtbahn and suburban route in other cities.

The locomotives were employed together with the T 12s especially on the Berlin Stadtbahn until its electrification in 1926–1933; as a result they had direction plates (Richtungsschilder) on their smokebox and coal tanks.

In 1925, the Deutsche Reichsbahn took over the 358 remaining locomotives as DRG Class 74.0–3, allocating them the numbers 74 001 to 74 358.

The majority of T 11s were retired by 1950 in the west and the 1960s in the east;[1] but two engines (74 231 and 74 240) continued to work the Erfurt Industrial Railway until 1974 and 1973 respectively.

The Lübeck-Büchen Railway also placed nine T 11s in service between 1906 and 1908; they had been built by Linke-Hofmann[10] The four engines taken over by Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1938, with numbers 74 361 to 74 364, were however not the Prussian T 11 — they were withdrawn from service between 1923 and 1929[10] — but the LBE's own special designs (LBE T10) based that were more like the Prussian T 9.3 and which had been built in 1911/1912 by Linke-Hofmann in a batch of five.