The ТЭ10 (TE10) is the predecessor of a large series of more than 10,000 diesel locomotives. It was developed from the ТЭ3 and also had a two-stroke opposed piston diesel engine, but the prototype of the ТЭ10 had the twelve-cylinder 9Д100 (9D100) with 3,000 hp. The 25 production locomotives still had 3,000 hp, but in the form of the ten-cylinder 10D100. Unlike its successors, the ТЭ10 had a self-supporting car body.

It was the most powerful single-unit diesel locomotive in the world at this time. All successor locomotives built up to the nineties had the same engine. Most of these were built as two-section variants of the 2ТЭ10 and many were even composed of three or four sections. In the seventies, most of the original ТЭ10 could be found as shunters in today's Ukraine. In the eighties, all but three were retired and the remaining three got lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today ТЭ10-006 is on display at Lubny, Ukraine.