Above-Floor Wheel Lathe For Railway Wheel Sets

The Simmons CNC Wheel Lathe (SWL-400) is an above-floor wheel lathe for reprofiling solid wheel or tired wheel treads of worn wheel sets of railway passenger and freight cars, diesel railcars, and locomotives. The lathe removes flat spots, shelling, and restores the wheel profile to pre-programmed specifications. Feeding-in, centering, chucking, wheel contour turning, and feeding-out are automatically controlled by the CNC controller. In addition, all operations can be initiated by pushbutton control from the operator's control pendant. An automatic probe system determines the wheel diameter, flange thickness, wheel width, and tread metal remaining with direct data input to the CNC control system.
For more information about the Simmons CNC Wheel Lathe, please visit the Simmons website: nsh-usa.com/machine/wheel-lat....
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[@hamjudo]

I probably have spent less than two hours total operating a lathe, so I am coming from a position of ignorance.
I am used to seeing a lot of lubricant flow in videos of lathe operation, or a note saying that the lubricant was briefly turned off specifically for the video.
This setup looks like all of the machining is done without lubrication. That obviously simplifies some things, but what is done differently to allow that? It clearly isn't running slow and taking shallow cuts. What keeps the tooling from overheating?

[@nsh-usa]

Hi Hamjudo - from what I can tell, I have not seen coolant in use on our above-floor (or, for that matter, underfloor) wheel lathes like the one shown in this video. We do, however, spend A LOT of time landing on the best cutting inserts so that the overheating issue is decreased (as well as chip breaking and other such machining issues). Thanks for watching!

[@jordanwalsh7773]

What carbide tooling is used on this machine?

[@nsh-usa]

Hi Jordan - I believe that is a Kennametal KRR658652 KC9115RR insert. Thanks for watching!

[@OtakuAzrall]

Any chance these go cheap? 😂

[@nsh-usa]

While I would not say cheap, they certainly are a bargain for the production capabilities and longevity of the machine. Thanks for watching!