#3479
China Railways DFH mainline locomotives
🇨🇳 China ·built by CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd.· from 1959· Class of Chinese diesel locomotives
1 photo from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
what is it?
The Dongfanghong (Chinese: 东方红) was a type of 4-axle B'B' single-cab diesel-hydraulic locomotive used on China Railway's mainline. The DFH began trial production in 1959 at the Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works (CRRC Sifang), before entering mass production in 1966. The DFH series of electric-drive diesel locomotives, includes the models numbered DFH2, DFH3, DFH4, DFH5, DFH7 and DFH21.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 67 years ago, in 1959.
- Top speed is 1.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- 3.3 MW is about 39 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 14 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 16.6 m long: about 4 cars parked nose to tail.
diesel locomotive: A diesel engine on board drives the wheels, usually through a generator (diesel-electric).
spec sheet
- built
- 1959–1976
- number built
- 268
- kind
- Diesel-hydraulic
- traction
- diesel
- origin
- 🇨🇳 China
- builders
- CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd., CRRC Ziyang Co., Ltd., CRRC Qishuyan Co., Ltd.
- operators
- China State Railway Group, Korean State Railway, Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China
- top speed
- 140 km/h
- power
- 3.3 MW
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- wheel arrangement
- DFH1
- length
- 16.6 m
- weight
- 84 t
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q752970, Wikipedia: China Railways DFH mainline locomotives (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.