By the early 1980s the ridership on the Soviet Railways strongly increased. It was required to increase the number of passenger trains, but this was prevented by an excessively huge freight traffic and an inability to increase the capacity of passenger trains due to the weight the Soviet locomotives of the time could pull. In order to be able to pull passenger trains with more than 30 cars, strong and powerful electric locomotives were required. The backbone of the Soviet Railways at the time, consisting out of the ChS2 (DC) and ChS4 (AC) electric locomotives, as well as of VL60p (passenger version of VL60), didn't suit these needs. The power of those electric locomotives was in the 4200–5100 kW range, while their traction force did not exceed 17400 kg. This was not enough for pulling 30-car passenger trains.
