My guess is steam clean dirt greese etc off the wheels
And then grind them back in to "true round" to take off flat spots etc
Les
Do i win the $64 dollars now?
OKay, my two bits. I was always a RR fan from childhood. On the cold and lonely NY nights my partner and I would explore the subways and RR yards of the MTA..
THe NYC Subway people used to do the following, usually late at night because of the noise and the terrible dust. In the yards they ran the cars throught the shop and steamed the undercarraiges off. Then at another spot they would check the wheels for round and either do a quick grind or sometimes lift the entire car onto jacks and so it.
THe worst thing we ever encountered was one night we heard loud noise from the underground so we went to take a look and they were using a massive grinder on wheels to grind the rails into specs. This was the biggest machine on rails I had ever seen.
**** thing kicked up so much steel dust we were covered in it and smelled like we went through a smelting pot. We stayed above ground after that.
Hope that sheds some more light into the question.
