Lucchini UK offers a full railway wheelset package, including wheels, axles, tyres and resilient wheels, supplied loose or assembled as complete wheelsets for new passenger and freight trains or for locomotives.
The company also specialises in the inspection, overhaul and maintenance of wheelsets, train gearboxes and final drives to UK-based operators and train maintenance contract holders. We supply to the full range of railroad applications, including high-speed, intercity, regional, underground, tram, freight, light rail, suburban and locomotives.
Wheelset maintenance for the railway industry
From its Manchester premises, Lucchini UK provides a full wheelset service package to its customers, which includes inspection, rewheeling, reprofiling, skimming of axles and brake discs, supply of new axles, overhaul of axle box bearings, painting and despatch.
A flexible workforce caters for both coded wheelset maintenance programmes and casualty repairs. Other components such as brake discs, axle bearings and axle bearing boxes are sourced from original equipment manufacturers for assembly on to wheelsets.
Lucchini UK has also invested in a dedicated railway gearbox facility. A highly trained team offers a range of services from condition monitoring to full overhaul and maintenance of EMU gearboxes and DMU final drives. Its ability to do everything concerned with a wheelset and gearbox under one roof makes Lucchini UK particularly cost effective for powered wheelsets.
Train wheel and axle production
Lucchini RS Group is the only UK-based manufacturer of wheels to offer the full train wheel production cycle, from forging and rolling (carried out at the Group’s state-of-the-art steelworks, forge and rolling mill in Lovere, Italy) through to finish machining, which is carried out in Manchester and its other satellite plants around the world. The full range of wheels can be supplied, from wheels for rail-based low liner car carriers to the world’s biggest loco wheels at 1,450mm diameter.
Axles are also manufactured in the Italian plant and transported to the UK for finish machining. The UK plant is equipped with two axle lathes and a CNC grinder for wheel seats and bearing journals. Skimming of axle bodies is available during wheelset overhaul where permitted by customer specifications.
The company offers axles to suit all railroad applications, including solid or hollow bore motor axles with multiple seats and axles with seats strengthened by molybdenum coating or cold rolling.
Non-destructive testing and inspection of rail wheelsets
Lucchini UK’s team of engineers and technicians are trained to carry out non-destructive testing and inspection of wheelsets and components, both at a customer’s train maintenance depot and at Lucchini UK.
A full range of NDT equipment includes ultra-sonic testing for wheels and axles, including hollow bore axles, magnetic particle inspection for axles and wheels, hardness testing, and static and dynamic balancing of wheels and wheelsets.
Railway steel sales
Lucchini UK also has a steel sales division, which acts as sole representative in the UK and Republic of Ireland for Ascometal SA of France, marketing a range of rolled and cold-finished round bars for special applications such as oil and gas, engineering, forging and machining. Forged pieces and forged bars from Lucchini RS of Lovere, Italy, can also be supplied.
Railway wheel research and development
Lucchini RS Group’s vertical integration of production and supply to market gives it a unique ability to convert the market’s needs for product development into reality through innovation. A team of metallurgists and engineers in the Group’s R & D Centre in Lovere focuses on the wheel-rail interface, wheel wear, noise reduction, and life cycle costs (LCC) to develop better products for its customers.
Trademarked products, such as UpLos and SuperLos (wheels that resist wear), Lursak (an axle protection system that resists ballast damage and corrosion, developed in collaboration with Akzo Nobel) and a wide range of quiet wheels such as Syope, Hypnos and Galene, have all come to market thanks to the group’s expertise.
About Lucchini RS Group
Lucchini UK belongs to the Lucchini RS Group of Italy, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wheels, axles and wheelsets. The group localises its product distribution through subsidiary companies such as Lucchini UK. There are similar companies in Sweden, Poland, China and India. The group also operates through a network of agents and associated companies to be found in most countries where rail transportation is important.