JNR Class EF57

The Class EF57 was a Japanese National Railways DC electric locomotive with a 2-C+C-2 wheel arrangement, developed from the earlier Class EF56. Fifteen were built between 1939 and 1943 by Hitachi and Kawasaki. They entered service on Tokaido Line passenger expresses such as the Tsubame, carrying the train headboard on the cab deck. When the newer semi-streamlined Class EF58 took over those duties, the EF57s moved to the Tohoku Main Line, where their steam-heating boilers were removed and replaced by electric-heating generators. They stayed on long-distance expresses there until the 1970s. One example, EF57 7, is preserved in a park in Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture.