Highly reliable bearings for railway trains are important in the process of pre-development and later performance improvement to fully grasp the actual conditions of use and to restore them to a greater extent in evaluation experiments. Ensuring the stability and ride comfort of rail vehicles is an important mission for bearings for railways, and depending on the railway gauge, wheel diameter and axle load, wheel sets can have different configurations and designs, and as all these systems are essential for performance and reliability of railway vehicles, careful consideration should be given when selecting bearing solutions. Drive systems for railway trains, such as gearboxes or traction motors, must be powerful, sustainable, cost-efficient and have low maintenance requirements. These requirements are becoming increasingly important as maintenance intervals become longer and the weight of railway vehicles increases.

The motors must provide high speeds and withstand shock loads, but they must also resist low load conditions, for example in coasting or cruise control mode, and in addition, sensitivity to discharge makes motor bearings a unique design challenge. These place high demands on bearing configurations, with specific challenges including greater operating temperature ranges, high shock loads, and increased overall loads combined with drives to reduce friction within the gearbox and reduce energy consumption, and we offer a wide range of solutions designed to help ensure reliable and cost effective operation and improve fleet operational efficiency and reliability.

Our rail-specific products and services allow you to exploit the full performance potential of your bearings, thereby helping you to reduce lifecycle costs and achieve sustainable and cost-effective operation with less maintenance in wet and contaminated environments, for robust, sustainable and cost-effective rail operations.