Tsubame (swallow) service in the 1950s. The locomotive has been given the nickname 'swallow angel' because of these emblems.

C62 3 returned to mainline service to commemorate the privatisation of the Japanese National Railways in the 1980s. However, the high cost of keeping one of the largest locomotives ever to exist on Japanese rail mainlines operational eventually left the operator no option but to withdraw it in 1995, when its boiler certificate