What types of railway grinding wheels does Molaton offer for different railways?

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What types of railway grinding wheels does Molaton offer for different railways?

Molaton organises rail grinding wheels into four families, keyed to the machine and the railway rather than to one universal size: grinding-train wheels (260-350 mm diameter), turnout and switch wheels (250-260 mm), portable-machine wheels (125-180 mm) and cut-off wheels (305-400 mm). All are resin-bonded and all carry a 50 m/s working rating except the cut-off range, which is rated 100 m/s. The right family is decided by the machine first, then by the defect mix on that particular railway.

Multi-head rail grinding vehicle used for production rail grinding — The same railway can need four different wheel families: a multi-head vehicle for production grinding, a portable machine for turnouts, and cut-off wheels for rail replacement.

The four families, by machine and by railway

Family	Catalogue sizes (OD x thickness x bore)	Abrasive / grit	Typical machine	Typical railway
Grinding-train wheels	260x90x154, 350x60x127, 350x50x127, 350x35x127, 350x25x127, 180x105x90, 250x75x150, 260x83x154	Zirconia alumina, 16 grit, glass-fibre reinforced	Production grinding vehicles (PGM-48/96C class, 16-head and 96-head vehicles, Loram and Speno class trains)	High-speed main line, heavy-haul, city-to-city corridor
Turnout and switch wheels	260x25x120, 254x32x25.4, 250x32x32	Zirconia alumina / brown alumina on iron core, 20 grit	Vertical-axis turnout grinders, switch and crossing units	Turnouts, crossings, switch panels, station throats
Portable-machine wheels	150x70xM20, 150x75x32, 150x65xM20, 150x56xM20 (weld-seam wheel), 180x80xM20, 125x65x20 (7,500 rpm)	Zirconia alumina, 20 grit	Portable rail grinders, weld-seam finishers, battery-powered grinders	Metro and light rail, weld finishing, spot defect removal
Cut-off wheels	356x4x25.4, 305x3.6x22.2, 400x4x32	Brown alumina ZA/F30, 30 grit, 100 m/s	Abrasive rail saws and cut-off machines	Rail replacement, emergency work, weld preparation

Why the railway type changes the wheel specification

The defect mix is not the same on a high-speed line as on a heavy-haul line, and the wheel is chosen around that mix. Across rail defects generally, corrugation, shelling, spalling, burrs, bruising, side wear and crushing account for more than 80% of all damage — but in different proportions:

Railway type	Dominant defect	What it means for the wheel
High-speed main line	Rolling contact fatigue cracks, light corrugation	Controlled cut depth, fine enough finish to avoid burning; 350 mm class train wheels
Heavy-haul	Shelling, spalling, rail-head crushing, burrs	Coarser 16 grit and thicker wheels (90 mm) for wear life under high axle loads
Metro and light rail, tight curves (R < 1,000 m)	Side wear and corrugation, driving noise and vibration	Shaped and smaller-diameter wheels, low-vibration formulas, work designed around short night windows
Turnouts and crossings	Frog point wear, damaged gap profile	Small-bore shaped wheels (250-260 mm) that reach narrow zones
Tram and grooved rail	Groove and groove-shoulder wear on 59R2 / 60R2 sections	Grooved-rail-specific wheels and welding applications
Port, crane and industrial rail	Wear on QU70-QU150 crane rail	Bore-matched wheels for heavy industrial sections

What the wheels do on real networks

Family selection is not a catalogue exercise — it is checked on track. On Liuzhou GMC-96X in 2022, our train wheels ground 18.72 km·passes within one 2-hour night window, wearing 20-30 mm against 43.5-59 mm for the imported wheel — roughly twice the durability at the same surface quality. On the Hewu high-speed line, the comparison was 4.28 km·passes per mm against 3.27, with 214.22 km·passes per wheel and no continuous burning. On heavy-haul, the Yiyang Line returned 5.7 km·passes per mm and Shuohuang 4.98. A 600-wheel batch for Shenhua passed full batch inspection before delivery.

Type testing backs the same numbers in the laboratory: a 260x90x153 mm wheel rated 50 m/s was spun to 4,775 rpm for 30 seconds without rupture, held to 6,354 rpm in the burst test, and measured 21 g unbalance — comfortably inside the GB/T 2492 limit.

Why trust this answer — RailwayCare (product brand Molaton) has manufactured rail grinding wheels since 2004 — the first dedicated producer in China, born from the friction-materials laboratory of Wuhan University of Technology. We drafted the industry standard JB/T 11431 for rail grinding wheels, are certified to ISO 9001 / ISO 45001 / CRCC, and every claim below is backed by on-track tests on high-speed, heavy-haul and metro networks.

Find the wheel family for your line

Send us your machine model, rail section and the defect you are fighting. We will identify the correct Molaton family and the exact size, grit and speed rating — and back it with test data on request.

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