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• Connell rail interchange project completes design phase (8/11/2020)

• RFP - LOCOMOTIVE ELECTRIFICATION

9/10/2015

Progress Rail Services Corp.: Wheelsets, axles, journal bearings

Progress Rail Services Corp., a Caterpillar Company, supplies wheelsets, axles and journal bearings.

“Strategically located facilities with extensive inventories” enables Progress Rail to provide parts quickly and effectively, the company says. Seven freight-car wheel shops provide turns and new mount services; three freight-car axle shops provide freight, passenger/transit, locomotive axle/wheelset plating and new axle finishing; and three freight-car bearing shops provide freight, passenger/transit and locomotive reconditioned bearings.

The wheel shops are equipped with “state-of-the-art standardized equipment,” including washers, lathes, boring mills, measuring devices and ultrasonic testing devices, the company says; Progress Rail machinists and operators are trained and certified to M-1003 requirements. The company’s bearing shop in Boaz, Ala., reconditions locomotive Hyatt box bearings and various locomotive journal bearing adapters, including conversion of Hyatt box bearings into locomotive journal bearing adapters. The company also can provide various locomotive bearing adapter plates such as those required for speed recorders or snubbers.

The company uses its own specialized truck/trailer fleet to handle safe and on-time shipments. Where 
appropriate, wheel shop properties use rail cars.

“Progress Rail has a proven track record of providing freight car wheelsets as economical as possible by utilizing our access to secondhand replacement components from our railcar salvage operations scattered throughout North America,” the company says. 

Progress Rail facilities operate with certified quality management systems in accordance with Association of American Railroads Quality Specification M-1003 and ISO 9001-2000.