Ventilated-type induction motors are widely used as traction motors on railway vehicles. However, they require overhauls for internal cleaning and are a major noise source. To solve these problems, we propose to use a totally enclosed permanent magnet synchronous motor as the traction motor, which has the same power-to-weight ratio as that of conventional ventilated type traction motors. This paper reports the results of temperature rise tests, noise measurement and energy consumption calculations. The results show that the noise level fell 10dB and energy consumption decreased by 10%.