It looked after locomotives on the first railway line in Germany, the Bavarian Ludwigsbahn from Nuremberg to Fürth.
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The DB heavy transport group (Straße-Schiene i.e. 'road-rail') was however based in Hagen.
Up to 1962 they were allocated to Bebra locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw), before being transferred to Bw Kassel where they worked alongside the DRG Class 01.10s until 20 March 1967 heading fast-stopping and express trains to and from Gießen.
Since the DB V 169-001 (DB 219 001) had already proven sufficiently that a locomotive of this type would work the Class 210 went into normal operations fairly quickly - between the end of 1970 and the beginning of 1971 the locomotives began operations, by the end of 1971 all eight locomotives had been introduced to the railway centre (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw.) at Kempten and were in scheduled operation.
The last few locomotives were retired in 1976 at Crailsheim locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw).
The rebuilt locomotives were primarily stationed in Saxony and Thuringia, above all in the locomotive depots (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw) of Aue, Döbeln, Dresden-Friedrichstadt, Gera, Gotha and Saalfeld.
In May the first factory trial runs were carried out and the locomotive was transferred on 12 June 1939 to the locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw) at Grunewald.
The last locomotives were retired by the DB in the mid-1970s at Rottweil locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw).