DC electric locomotive of the Russian Railways. In 1954, the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant developed a draft design of a new electric locomotive that would serve as a replacement for the VL22M electric locomotive, the main disadvantage of which was the rapid drop in traction with increasing speed and the design of the bogies, which did not allow it to be effectively operated on lines with hilly and flat profiles.
Instead of TED DPE-400 with an hourly power of 400 kW, the new locomotive was supposed to use TED NB-406 with an hourly power of 525 kW of VL8 electric locomotives. The new series was named VL23. Some elements of electric locomotives of the VL23 series were unified with VL8 (wheel-motor block, motor-fans) and VL22M (motor-compressors, regenerative braking circuit on some electric locomotives of the series). The design of the bogies was carried out in two versions: with bar frames, similar to the frames of VL22M electric locomotives, and with cast frames, similar to the frames of VL8 electric locomotives.