At GATX we strive to make railcar leasing easier. To us, this also entails ensuring that maintenance activities run as efficiently as possible and that our workshop partners have the latest tools and processes available. Therefore we began testing a new water-based coating for railcar wheelsets at our in-house Ostroda workshop.

Our teams adhere to excellence and hence strictly follow GATX’s Entity in Charge of Maintenance (ECM) guide rules. To guarantee the railcar’s optimum condition, the wheelsets are coated to protect against corrosion both when newly-built and after the maintenance activities.

Each year, we carry out about 5,000 wheelset coatings at our in-house Ostroda workshop, where we tested the new one-component water-based paint that has a low VOC content and guarantees an 80% less drying time. It also offers 50% less work time per coating as one coat covers all wheelset components, ranging from the axle, two wheels and two bearing housings. And lastly, we can fully omit the use of the additional thermo-indication paint system as the paint already offers this feature. We opted for efficiency both for our clients and nature.

Greener is better holds true for our railcar maintenance. The tested paint as a One-K product does not require any hardener, what results in having no leftovers of the hardened coating contained solvents. We look forward to quickly advancing from the trial period stage to integrating this new water-based feature in our GATX Rail Europe’s technical requirement guide for GATX Rail Europe’s partner workshops. This is a very important and meaningful step for us, as by reducing our footprint in Ostroda, we lay the path for our partner workshops to become more sustainable in the near future.

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