JNR Class ED73

The JNR Class ED73 was a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement AC electric locomotive operated by Japanese National Railways in Kyushu between 1962 and the 1980s. Toshiba built twenty-two of them in 1962 and 1963, and the first were delivered to Moji depot in northern Kyushu. The design was derived from the Class ED72 introduced a year earlier, but because the ED73 was meant mainly for freight it had no steam generator for train heating and was three metres shorter than the Bo-2-Bo ED72. In the late 1960s the whole class was modified with better braking performance for express freight services and renumbered into the ED73 10xx series, and later it also worked overnight sleeping car trains. The class was withdrawn by the early 1980s and no example has been preserved.