Does a wheel with a flat spot eventually smooth itself out or does it usually need to go to the wheel shop to have a wheel truing machine do it?
jb
jb
Flat Wheels
- Thread starter John Bobinyec
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
They must go to the shop to run though a large grinder. The big railroads have a machine that make a smooth profile on the wheels. When I rode the Santa Fe Southern about ten years ago I watch a worker use a hand grinder to the do the same process. You can tell a flat wheel due to making a clanking sound traveling down the track. There is a good article on Wikipedia on the subject. I would post a link, but I can not get the copy and paste to work the forum.
Last edited by a moderator:
Devil's Advocate
⠀⠀⠀
The area of a flat spot is generally much wider than the relatively skinny portion of the wheel that is in direct contact with the rail. Even if the wheel was receiving enough force/friction to be self-rounded lack of a controlled impact would simply squish/grind the wheel into some other uneven dimension. The part of the wheel/rail that does suffer from routine friction/grinding is along the inner lip, but grinding that away won't get rid of a flat spot. Or at least that's how I understand it.
Last edited by a moderator:
KmH
Engineer
Last edited by a moderator:
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
AU Supporting Member
Gathering Team Member
If the flat spot is small enough it could get repaired by the mere action of the rolling of the wheel. I have noticed that happen at least once on a Viewliner that I was in, on one of the Silver Service trains. There was a slight flat spot when I went to sleep. When I woke up next morning, it was pretty much gone.
Ryan
Court Jester
Here is a wheel machine in the Chicago shops:
fairviewroad
Engineer
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2011
- Messages
- 3,387
I'd like to borrow that thing to fix a wheel on my rollaboard suitcase that's been bugging me for years.
