Loco Wheel Lathes

[25901]

Just wondering how many loco wheels lathes are left in the country. I know a 59 has just been sent all the way up to Leeds to done and seem to remember a DRS 37 being sent to Laira in the last 18 months.. 

Now I know there are plenty of rolling stock depots with lathes now but for DMU/EMU units only.

To me it always seems to be a long trip in distance and not just time to get the job done.

Cheers for any input

[Gordon A]

I believe St Phillips Marsh, Bristol has a wheel lathe.

[ikcdab]

32 minutes ago, 25901 said:

Just wondering how many loco wheels lathes are left in the country. I know a 59 has just been sent all the way up to Leeds to done and seem to remember a DRS 37 being sent to Laira in the last 18 months.. 

Now I know there are plenty of rolling stock depots with lathes now but for DMU/EMU units only.

To me it always seems to be a long trip in distance and not just time to get the job done.

Cheers for any input

I dont think Leeds or Laira is particularly a long way to travel. Only a few hours really.  I imagine wheel lathes are expensive so it makes sense to not have too many. I don't think there are many in the heritage world either.

[25901]

5 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

I dont think Leeds or Laira is particularly a long way to travel. Only a few hours really.  I imagine wheel lathes are expensive so it makes sense to not have too many. I don't think there are many in the heritage world either.

Any trip is a long trip with a loco that's speed restricted. 

The ELR did have a wheel lathe many moons ago from Reddish depot but scrapped it.

[Pandora]

Wheel lathes known to be present:

Ashford Kent ( Hitachi Depot )

Wimbledon

Slade Green.

is there a lathe at Selhurst?

 

The long trips may be a necessity of a finding a depot with a spare timeslot to do the work, lathes  are very busy during leaf fall season, skimming out flats in the tyre caused by wheel lock ups when braking .

Reasons for a temporary  speed restrictions on a loco due to wheels require turning include wheel flats,  poor profile,  worn tyres develop a hollow in the taper or cone of the tyre profile, leads to violent  side-to-side hunting of the axle  as it rolls,  the speed where severe  hunting is induced by a tyre worn to a hollow seems to be around 45 mph

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Pandora

[DY444]

It's more a question of ownership than location.  Depots are not common user as they were in BR days.  If you use the nearest and it belongs to someone else then you will be charged a fee (probably a big fee).  Use your own and you won't so any access charges to get there notwithstanding, it's cheaper.  You also have total control over the programme of work at your own depots which you don't at someone else's.  FL regularly send electrics to Leeds from Crewe despite the presence of at least one wheel lathe nearby.   

Edited December 14, 2021 by DY444

[iands]

London Overground has its own wheel lathe at their New Cross Gate depot, for their 378 units.

Edited December 14, 2021 by iands
Clarification

[Mol_PMB]

Underfloor wheel lathes, where the wheels can be reprofiled in situ under the vehicle, are fairly common - I’d estimate there are 30 or more scattered around the country. 

For example, Northern trains may visit lathes at Longsight, Allerton, Ardwick, Neville Hill, Crewe, and now there’s one being installed at Newton Heath too. The selected lathe will depend on availability, ownership etc as well as location. 

As noted above, ownership varies and so does design and capability. Some can turn two axles at once (if the bogie wheelbase is in a certain range) which makes the process much quicker for certain multiple unit types. 

The lathe needs to clamp the axleboxes (the wheelset is normally turned on its own bearings) and there’s a wide variety of different axlebox types out there. So some lathes may only have the equipment to turn their ‘home’ fleet. When you get to inside bearings with hollow axles (e.g. 220) clearly a different setup is needed. Steam locos different again. 

There may also be limitations on access to the lathe, such as curve radius on the siding, maximum axleload, length of the siding beyond the lathe (e.g. if turning the wheels on the middle car of an 11-car 390). 

 

Mol

[Pandora]

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Underfloor wheel lathes, where the wheels can be reprofiled in situ under the vehicle, are fairly common - I’d estimate there are 30 or more scattered around the country. 

For example, Northern trains may visit lathes at Longsight, Allerton, Ardwick, Neville Hill, Crewe, and now there’s one being installed at Newton Heath too. The selected lathe will depend on availability, ownership etc as well as location. 

As noted above, ownership varies and so does design and capability. Some can turn two axles at once (if the bogie wheelbase is in a certain range) which makes the process much quicker for certain multiple unit types. 

The lathe needs to clamp the axleboxes (the wheelset is normally turned on its own bearings) and there’s a wide variety of different axlebox types out there. So some lathes may only have the equipment to turn their ‘home’ fleet. When you get to inside bearings with hollow axles (e.g. 220) clearly a different setup is needed. Steam locos different again. 

There may also be limitations on access to the lathe, such as curve radius on the siding, maximum axleload, length of the siding beyond the lathe (e.g. if turning the wheels on the middle car of an 11-car 390). 

 

Mol

The Wheel lathes I have seen  turning,  did not clamp  axleboxes,  the wheel to be turned was raised  up, a moveable rail retracted and the wheel lowered onto  a pair of small drive  wheels, one ahead and one behind (think of a  rolling road for model locos) , the drive wheel caused the wheel to rotate while a cutting tool milled the new profile, workrate including setting up was about 40 minutes to 60 minutes per axle. Steam locos were turned using axle centres, a Bulleid Pacific was turned at Wimbledon  attracting considerable interest from the Depot shopfloor

 

[Mol_PMB]

Wheel lathes aren’t all the same, some may well work as you describe. 

On the ones I have seen which clamp axleboxes, there are still the drive rollers to turn the wheels. 

If you don’t control the axle centre somehow you end up with eccentric wheels. 

 

Agreed, steam locos are turned using axle centres. 

 

In addition to the actual turning operation, a lot of time is taken up in pre-turn and post-turn activities which may include suspension packing, WSP setup, disconnecting or reconnecting cardan shafts etc. 

[iands]

Just for interest, a couple of photos of the LO wheel lathe at NXG depot.

 

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

17 hours ago, iands said:

Just for interest, a couple of photos of the LO wheel lathe at NXG depot.

 

 

 

Nice pics of a twin-headed lathe that can reprofile a whole bogie at once. This also shows the axlebox clamps nicely (the black bits that look like crab claws) although they are not deployed in the photos.

Note that they have lifting eyes on top, so the overhead crane can be used to swap them for a different type (to suit different bogies) if needed.

[iands]

Thanks for the additional info @Mol_PMB. I'm not a Wheel Lathe expert so couldn't explain what all the different bits are. A few more photos from different angles that might also be of interest to someone.

 

 

 

 

 

[45125]

The older wheel lathes like the Atlas type use a milling type cutter as opposed to the Hegenshiedt MFD ones that use a single cutting tip. Cutting can very from a light skim to taking quite a lot of material off depending on the damage and other things found when turning and how much needs to come off to get other wheelsets to parity.

 

[Banger Blue]

Reading TCD has a wheel lathe. Mainly for our DMU/EMU fleet but I think (not 100% sure) that they can do the Class 57s as well. There has definitely been an HST in the lathe before but I think that may have been for some of the coaches and not the Power Cars.
During RHTT season we usually get a couple of visits from the Didcot RHTT set for tyre turning. The only other ‘external’ visitor I can recall were the Heathrow Express Class 332s which visited once or twice.

 

Class 43 43127, attached to the KUBO shunting mule, stands on the wheel lathe road at Reading TCD:

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

I’ve often thought that a wheel lathe would be perfect for an ‘anything goes’ small depot layout set in the past 50 years or so. 

No need to think up elaborate excuses for unusual locos or rolling stock to visit. 

I’ve visited a dozen or so in my time (well, on my employer’s time), the ones I can remember visiting are Ardwick, Neville Hill, Hornsey, Kirkdale, Shields, Oxley, Etches Park; I’ve definitely seen more... 

[turbos]

Craigentinny Depot wheel lathe is a good example to model, it’s located well away from the main depot and has quite a wide variety of different users, not just their own TOCs rolling stock but other TOCs and FOCs use it and very occasionally the SRPS have used it. Surprisingly though ScotRail very rarely use it, preferring to use their own lathes at Shields Road and Inverness.

 

https://www.cairncross.uk.com/projects/craigentinny-underfloor-wheel-lathe-installation/