Pure mechanical braking is the most primitive braking method for mining electric locomotives. Although it has many shortcomings such as slow braking response time, long idle braking time, inconvenient operation, and easy to cause bearing wear, but also because of its simple and reliable structure, pure mechanical braking is installed in all every mining electric locomotive as a basic braking method. On electric locomotives, in case other braking methods fail.
At the same time, because pure mechanical braking is sufficient for electric locomotives of 1.5-2.5 tons, in order to save costs, these two tonnage electric locomotives generally only use pure mechanical braking as a braking method.

Because electric locomotives with larger tonnage require greater braking power, and manual braking alone is time-consuming and laborious, hydraulic braking or air braking is generally used. The former is commonly used in electric locomotives of 3-5 tons, and the latter is mostly used in electric locomotives of 6 tons or more.