CRRC Datong Co. Ltd. () is a Chinese railway locomotive manufacturing plant based in

Datong Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province, China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 census, it had a population o ...

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

, China, founded in 1953. The factory was a major producer of steam locomotives for the Chinese market up to 1988 when production switched to diesel powered locomotives. By the 1990s electric locomotives had begun to be produced, and became the major product of the works. In 2003, the factory became CNR Datong Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd. (DELC) and a subsidiary of China CNR Corporation as part of a re-organisation of the Chinese railway manufacturing industry.

History

The Datong Locomotive Factory was founded in 1954 as part of the first Chinese five-year plan for economic development. The first locomotive was produced in 1959. By 1988, the factory had produced over 5000 steam locomotives, and was a major steam locomotive manufacturer in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, by the 1980s manufacturing between 250 and 300 locomotives yearly; many of these units were QJ "march forward" 2-10-2 heavy freight locomotives. Steam locomotive production at Datong was a

vertically integrated In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration, also referred to as vertical consolidation, is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each ...

process, starting from raw steel. The last steam locomotive to be produced at the plant, was made on 21 December 1988. In the 1980s, the plant began to manufacture diesel locomotives, including types DF4B and DF4C. By 1999, over 600 diesel locomotives had been produced. In 1990, the plant began to produce electric locomotives - the SS7 six axle Bo'Bo'Bo' and the SS7E Co'Co' mainline electrics were developed and manufactured at Datong. The company was also jointly involved with Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Works in the high-speed passenger EMU development project '' China Star'' in 2002. In 2003, the company became part of the China CNR Corporation as ''CNR Datong Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd.''. In 2004, the company entered into a manufacturing and technology transfer agreement with

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

, leading to the production of the HXD2 series of locomotive classes. The first HXD2 locomotive to be manufactured in China was completed in 2007. In August 2012, the first example of a localised version of the HXD2 locomotive was produced by the factory, numbered HXD2-1001.

Joint ventures

The company has entered into joint ventures with ABC Rail Products (1996, castings), Stennmann (2002, Pantographs),

(2004, locomotive manufacture),

ABB Group ABB Group is a Swedish-Swiss multinational electrical engineering corporation. Incorporated in Switzerland as ABB Ltd., and headquartered in Zurich, it is dual-listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm, Sweden, and the SIX Swiss Exch ...

(2007, electric transformers), SEMCO (India) (2007, wheelsets) and Faiveley (2007, railway couplers).

Museum

The factory site also included a museum, which was moved to Beijing in 2004.

References

External links

* * Social history of Datong locomotive factory (perspective) {{DEFAULTSORT:Datong Electric Locomotive CRRC Group CRRC Datong