The Royal Saxon State Railways grouped all uncoupled locomotives into its Class _ VIa, whereby the prefix _ represented the short form of the manufacturer's name until 1896 (after which it was dropped entirely).
Class VI was for the so-called Eilzuglokomotiven ("fast-stopping train locomotives") and a stood for older (ältere) designs; in this case for the uncoupled engines with a 2-2-2 wheel arrangement.
E. B. was founded in 1869 it initially only had the three Hartmann locomotives from the Östlichen Staatsbahn in its fleet.
Following the nationalisation of the LDE in 1876, the 28 remaining engines which had been built by Hartmann in 1856 and Borsig in 1868 were given the class designations H VIa and B VIa respectively, the conversions being classed as B II and B IIa T. The so-called Spinnräder ("spinning wheels") lasted a surprisingly long time.
Railway number 2, formerly BOEHLEN (previously ZÜRICH in the LDE) was the penultimate engine to be withdrawn, in 1900.