It was plain to see the bread-and-butter business of freight rail components was flattening and would not return to the favorable, albeit cyclical, levels that AFS Corporate Member Amsted Rail had enjoyed for 100 years at its Granite City, Illinois foundry. 

Then, opportunity stood squarely in front of the Chicago-based global provider of undercarriage and railcar components: A chance to cross over into the new passenger transit market. It would take an acquisition and a multi-million-dollar facility overhaul to make the shift, but when a massive  project opened for bid––to supply castings for the Chicago Metra commuter rail system––they jumped in. 

There was bigger vision behind the decision. Once positioned for transit work, Amsted was banking on a new light out of the stagnant freight tunnel. 

“We had a volume problem here that we were trying to fill with new business,” said Kerby Vulgamott, director of transit at Amsted Rail. “We saw this opportunity come about after we bought the transit intellectual property of Columbus Steel Castings in 2015, which included a lot of the designs that were being considered for this Metra job. When we landed the project, we had to take a look at our existing landscape, and we needed some new additions. So we had to make investments for large flask molding in the nobake process, because that’s how these castings were going to be made.

“Our investment was basically intended to open the doors to provide future business for Granite City, not necessarily just transit, but anything that would fit inside the flask size that we’re capable of now.”

But first, they did the heavy lifting to win the job for global rail transportation giant, Alstom, which develops a range of rolling stock products including commuter trains. The project at hand was a GSI transit truck set–– for which Amsted Rail was given accolades in the 2024 AFS/Casting Source Casting Competition. The two castings weigh 3,150 and 2,200 lbs. with dimensions of 56-in. wide x 145 in. long x 26 in deep and 31 in. wide x 117 in. long x 23 in. deep, respectively. 

More Than the Customer Expected

Amsted wound up far exceeding the customer’s requirements by providing not only the castings but the entire assembled bogie, a new concept for the customer, but not for Amsted. Cast steel truck suppliers have historically offered only a package of components, leaving rail car builders to integrate and create the truck system on their own. 
“For our freight offerings, we offer a fully assembled bogie to our customers, said Vulgamott. “And that’s our strategic advantage––it’s a one-line-item transaction versus that purchasing authority having to source 30 parts to make a bogie for freight. Instead, they can just call Amsted rail, and we can send them the whole thing. Same thing now with transit, only this is 900 parts going into this bogie. We’re trying to make their job easier, and they can depend on us to support them.”

Fundamentally, the requirements of transit are very different from the freight market, which has, till recently, been Amsted’s sole arena. Joe Patterson, Amsted’s director of transit engineering (who came over from Columbus Steel Castings after the acquisition), said that unlike transit, freight is very standardized with highly-defined design, testing, and quality requirements prescribed by the Association of American Railroads.

“So, freight isn’t a product that changes much,” he added. “As far as transit, it’s very focused on the end agency’s need. There’s single-level and bi-level, there are different speeds, and different platform types. So, the castings become somewhat custom for every transit program. That’s probably the biggest difference. And then, of course, they’re people movers versus freight movers, so there are a lot of other characteristics such as additional suspension for comfort.”

Bringing the Work Onboard

The new program encompasses truck set castings and bogie assembly for 200 Metra train cars, which equates to 400 bogies with 400 individual frames, bolsters, as well as some smaller castings. Amsted was awarded the job in 2019 and provided first articles this year. The foundry will be at full production next year. 

Amsted decided to 3D print the cores for the large truck sets, leveraging its in-house 3DP technology that reduced the number of pieces to about 50 as opposed to 120 if they had gone the traditional sand coremaking route.
Sources all remarked that their colleague, Process Engineer Patrick Patton, has played a pivotal part in the development and casting of the truck set, and is also instrumental in creating a frame, a large bolster, as well as smaller castings such as bearing housings and disc brake brackets––“a significant amount of engineering commitment,” Vulgamott said.

Amsted’s GSI trucks are cast in a nickel steel alloy with high fatigue properties, which makes them weldable in the field if they become damaged. Developed for some of the company’s legacy designs, it has demonstrated high service life durability of 40 years––a strong selling feature for the customer. The alloy has the added benefit of corrosion resistance, and it improves low-temperature impact strength––with a temperature range of minus 20F to 140F, the castings will not be menaced by Chicago’s temperamental climate. 

While still retaining its share in the declining freight market, Amsted embarked on widespread changes to adapt for the incoming transit work with numerous facility alterations, including:

1) In the molding area, an existing green sand slinger floor was removed and two nobake mixers installed. In addition, mold handling equipment was installed to position flasks over the patterns for molding. 

2) A new shakeout was purchased and installed on the pouring floor to shake out the transit flasks after pouring.

3) An entire building that previously contained finishing and painting operations was cleared out and prepared for transit finishing. This included a major investment in a machining center: A 4-axis with 90-degree head CNC machine was installed in the cleared area. The large 3 x 5-meter work area allows for machining large castings without having to re-fixture multiple times. Supporting infrastructure such as cranes were upgraded in that building, where a large shotblast machine was also installed. Besides blasting its own castings, Amsted also is a blasting source to other foundries. 

4) A new paint unit was created in the newly renovated building. Capable of using two-part paint systems, the paint booth is climate controlled and is able to accelerate curing at elevated temperatures.

5) To complete the bogie assembly, Amsted constructed a new assembly line with several work stations to support the mating together of the castings, attaching various sub-assemblies, and testing the truck set for functionality.

6) In its onsite testing and development laboratory, the company also constructed a new test machine to perform full scale validation testing of the transit truck set. It uses 16 actuators to simulate service conditions and collect data from 140 strain gauges in real time using aircraft-grade MTS Aeropro software.

When they talk about simulating service conditions, think motion––bouncing, rolling, brake forces, and different directions of axle travel. 

“There’s a huge hydraulic system running 3,000 psi into servo-hydraulic actuators, which are between 110,000 lbs. and 22,000 lbs.,” said Patterson. “Then there’s a computer subsystem that controls each servo on the actuator with an in-line load cell and displacement transducer. When determining the static and dynamic load cases, we’re trying to test in the lab something similar to real-world, in-service load conditions, so we’re running vertical, lateral plus role, longitudinal and braking forces for multiple systems. That’s why it takes 16 actuators, all working simultaneously to create an in-service motion. Everything has to be considered in the test.”

In-House Horsepower

Amsted employees made the journey into transit successful as the company ramped up to meet Alstom’s precise requirements. The Granite City workforce is comprised of four unions––pattern makers, electricians, machinists, and steel workers––and from the beginning, Amsted management communicated with union teams about the tremendous opportunity to bring in a new steady stream of work. Shifting to the transit side of the business was voluntary, and 25 workers signed on, bringing considerable knowledge and experience over to the new transit division, in addition to two new hires.

“One guy from the pouring floor who works around 3,000-degree molten metal all day signed up for a painting job where it’s a 72-degree pristine environment,” Vulgamott recalled. “He was so thankful you’d have thought he won the lottery!”

Upskilling an already talented team happened at several levels. For example, product inspectors had to become MPI inspection certified, and welders were sent to acquire certifications through the American Welders Society. Union machinists were recruited and trained on the new four-axis Okuma CNC, for which an all-new job classification was developed. 

Another new process to learn involved a specialized load test press for the giant GSI truck castings––team members have to check for suspension, heights, clearances, and more. A small test press is also in the assembly area.

Working with a new alloy also created training needs for the melt, pouring, and heat treat teams. “We haven’t had a new alloy in this facility for a very long time, so it was an opportunity to learn and integrate it into our operations without disrupting things” said Richard Brosch, director of metallurgy for all Amsted’s North American foundries. “Almost all of our tonnage is the same two grades of steel, and we just make it over and over again and optimize it. There was a lot of good work by these teams incorporating the new alloy.

Brosch added that the facility had been an exclusively green sand foundry, but they moved to nobake for the new transit program. 

“So we had to compensate for those differences,” he said, “to understand the distortion and how the mold is going to behave––from making the mold to coping and stripping times. Fortunately, we were able to leverage other people in our family of foundries that do a lot of nobake molding, but this was the first large-scale, nobake molding that has been done here. 

“We had to get our people familiar with the required testing of sand and resins, plus learning the new equipment when it came in––all the basics of how to run a nobake molding operation. They did a great job learning and adapting to the new method.”

Passing Muster

As soon as Amsted appeared on Alstom’s radar, the customer began to recognize the foundry’s deep knowledge of transit truck design and sent a team out to visit the plant.

“They came to check out our capabilities, and they were very impressed with how modern our foundry was,” said Brosch. “We laid out plans of how we would develop our transit program and they were impressed with our capabilities and what our current structure was. And the fact that we had over 100 years of experience manufacturing steel castings––that was a big appeal.”

Intensely focused on quality, Alstom audits all its suppliers, and has visited the Granite City facility multiple times per year, Vulgamott said. All in all, the special auditing process to work with Alstom was indeed long and grueling, but today, Amsted is officially Alstom-qualified in heat treat, machining, casting, and painting. With that status, the foundry is eligible––and receives––short-notice jobs when they’ve got capacity.

After Amsted won the contract in 2020, the GSI truck set design took shape with continuous collaboration between foundry engineering, the foundry casting team, and the Alstom design group. Together, they worked through feature changes such as reducing the roll angle of the car, including an anti-roll bar and mechanical hand brakes versus pneumatic. 

“I wouldn’t say our customer was casting oriented––they are fabricated-truck builders,” said Brosch, “so they recognized the value of our 100 years of experience. 

“As we showed them our engineering capability and foundry knowledge, it promoted the high level of collaboration and confidence in each other as we moved through the program.”