Indian locomotive class WCG-1

The Indian locomotive class WCG-1, originally classified EF/1, is a class of 41 electric freight locomotives for 1.5 kV DC lines, developed in the late 1920s by Vulcan Foundry and the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. Electrifying the line from Kalyan to Pune and Igatpuri needed powerful engines for the 1 in 37 grade. The first ten were built by SLM at Winterthur and the other 31 by Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows between 1928 and 1929, with electrical equipment by Metrovick from Brown, Boveri drawings, and they were the first electric locomotives Vulcan Foundry built. Each weighed 123 tonnes and ran on two powered bogies with three coupled axles, driven by 650 horsepower traction motors. Staff called them crabs, and they handled curves well on the ghat sections. From 1974 they were used mainly for shunting at Bombay and Lonavla, they were withdrawn by the early 2000s, and two are preserved, with no. 4502 on display in the National Rail Museum of India.