In order to alleviate the tense situation of general speed passenger locomotive application, the then Ministry of Railways in China issued a research task of 6-axle 7200 kW AC electric locomotive for passenger trains from Chinese CNR Dalian Locomotive and Vehicle Development Co. Ltd. in 2009. The new locomotive with Co-Co body type was stereotyped as HXD3C. "HX" is "harmony" in the Chinese pinyin initials, "D" stands for electric locomotive, the "3" as the representative of Dalian Works code, known as the "He Xie Dian 3C" electric locomotive.
Locomotive traction system is AC-DC-AC drive, water-cooled IGBT traction inverter, inverter fed asynchronous traction motor, distributed network control system, 1 200 kW shaft power, 7200 kW rated power, 120 km/h maximum operating speed; in order to meet the needs of passenger train that powered by locomotive, power supply windings, train power supply cabinet, power supply socket, passenger and cargo mode switches and dual-piped air supply brake device are installed, so that the locomotive provides the compressed air supply for brake systems of the passenger train as well as the 600 volt DC power supply.
Photographed by Asit Baran Das & Bani Das.