The JNR Class ED37 was a Japanese DC electric locomotive operated by the Japanese National Railways from 1944 to November 1963.
History[]
The Class ED37 was an early electric locomotive used in Japan. One locomotive was built in 1944 by Toshiba; it features similar characteristics to a number of other locomotives manufactured by Toshiba around the same time for private railways, such as the Miyagi Electric Railway Class ED35; the locomotive was initially ordered for the Okutama Electric Railway (now part of JR East's Ōme Line), classified as the Class 1020 and numbered 1021, but by the time the locomotive was completed the Okutama Electric Railway had already been nationalized and as such the locomotive came under the jurisdiction of the Japanese National Railways, where it operated with no changes in number and deployed in the Nishi National Locomotive District to pull freight trains.
The locomotive was briefly deployed to Sakunami but was later moved in January 1952 to the Onoda Line, where it pulled coal trains over sections of track formerly owned by the Ube Electric Railway. With the enactment of vehicle naming regulations the same year, 1021 was reclassified as the JNR Class ED37 and renumbered ED37 1. The locomotive was reclassified again in 1961 as the Class ED29 and renumbered ED29 11; this was the second type of locomotive to bear the class after a boxcab electric locomotive acquired from the Toyokawa Railway. The locomotive's final assignment was at Hamamatsu Works, where it acted as a switcher locomotive; it was withdrawn from service in November 1963 and scrapped.
Specifications[]
The Class ED37 used a nose suspension drive system. SE-150 traction motors were used on the locomotives.