what is it?
The Class ED500 was a single Bo-Bo wheel arrangement dual voltage AC/DC electric locomotive built experimentally by Hitachi in Japan in 1992. The design was derived from the DC Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement Class EF200 also built by Hitachi, and was intended to replace Class ED75 locomotives on Tohoku Main Line freight services. The locomotive was loaned to JR Freight for testing until 1994, but the design was not selected for full production due to problems with restarting a single Bo-Bo wheel arrangement locomotive on the 25‰, 2.5%, gradients of the Tohoku Main Line and in the Seikan Tunnel.
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 34 years ago, in 1992.
- 4 MW is about 47 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 11 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 17.6 m long: about 4 cars parked nose to tail.
electric locomotive: Draws power from overhead wires or a third rail and pulls separate carriages.
spec sheet
- built
- 1992
- status
- retired
- number built
- 1
- kind
- Electric
- traction
- electric
- origin
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- builders
- Hitachi
- operators
- Japan Freight Railway Company
- top speed
- 120 km/h
- power
- 4 MW
- gauge
- 1,067 mm Cape gauge
- electric system
- 20 kV AC at 50/60 Hz, overhead wire
- wheel arrangement
- Bo-Bo
- length
- 17.6 m
- weight
- 67.2 t
- Dutch name
- JR Freight ED500
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q6108865, Wikipedia: JR Freight Class ED500 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.