JR Freight Class EF200

The Class EF200 was a Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement DC electric locomotive type that JR Freight ran on freight services in Japan from 1992 until its retirement on 28 March 2019. It was developed to replace Class EF66 locomotives on heavy freight work on the Tokaido Main Line and Sanyo Main Line west of Tokyo, and it carried six 1,000 kW FMT2 traction motors for a total output of 6,000 kW. The class was judged over-specified and unnecessarily expensive, so the order stopped after 20 full-production locomotives and the later Class EF210 became the standard freight design. A prototype, EF200-901, was delivered in March 1990 for testing, and weak power supply to the overhead lines at first limited the locomotives to 1,200 tonne trains instead of the 1,600 tonnes they were designed to haul. The class won the Laurel Prize in 1992, and the prototype was moved to the Hitachi Mito factory in October 2016 and restored to its original livery.