EL JR Freight Class EF210-300 travels on the Nambu Branch lineI recently introduced you to passenger trains every time, but feel like doing something different. Do you remember the electric locomotive (EL) Class EF210, which I showed you eight years ago in this blog? I'm going to introduce some more about this EL today.
The Class EF210 is one of Japan Freight's EL fleets for 1,067mm gauge. It was launched in 1996 to replace an old EL, Class EF65. A total of 146 units were built by Mitsubishi Electric and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The Class EF210 is a 1,500V direct current EL with an axis arrangement Bo-Bo-Bo (UIC notation). It has six induction motors with a VVVF inverter (variable frequency drive) control system. Its total power output is 3,390kW. Pulling a total of 1,300-ton cargo container wagons, it can travel with a maximum speed of 110 kilometers per hour.
I'm going to introduce the Class EF210-300, a special group of the EF210 family, today. The EF210-300 debuted in 2013 as a pusher EL that temporarily assists a train that requires additional power to climb a gradient section. For that purpose, the EF210-300 has a large buffer behind the cow catcher. For rail-fans, it's easy to recognize that the EF210-300 (see the top photo) has yellow-colored body stripes; meanwhile, the standard EF210 (see the photo below) has white-colored body stripes. More importantly, the EF210-300 is a specialist, but can also operate on the standard sections with the same performance as the standard EF210. The Class EF 210-300 is versatile.
