BNSF's Havelock, Neb., wheel shop keeps them rolling, safely, thanks to sophisticated new material-handling and ultrasonic inspection technology.

At Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, reliable freight car and locomotive maintenance plays as important a role as train scheduling and car trip planning (p. 35) in operating a high-performance network. In the mechanical department, performance improvement teams are looking at things as diverse as hose and coupler wear, roller bearing life cycle, and wheelset reconditioning.

BNSF's Havelock, Neb., wheelset shop reconditions freight car wheelsets for all the railroad's shops system-wide--about 90,000 wheelsets per year. To improve the quality of reconditioning--thereby reducing road failures, derailments, and service interruptions--BNSF contracted with Midland Reclamation and Railway Supply Companies, Dow, Ill., for a state-of-the-art ultrasonic inspection system.

What's different about this installation is that it includes an automated material-handling system that transports wheelsets from the wheel truing machine to the ultrasonic tester, and then moves them to where bearings are pressed on the axle. Unlike most other ultrasonic inspection systems, this unit, known as a Krautkramer Device, inspects assembled wheelsets (wheels and axles, less bearings) for internal defects. There's no need to demount the wheel from the axle for inspection, and then remount it afterwards. It includes the ultrasonic sensors and computer hardware and software.