Two blue end caps for bearings made by Amsted Rail’s Brenco Inc. appear on a freight car truck at the Union Pacific’s Butler Yard in Wisconsin.
Steve Sweeney
Q What is the significance of the blue paint that I see on the rotating bearing caps on freight car wheelsets? – Tito Porfiri, Olney, Md.
A The blue bearing caps you saw were most likely manufactured by Amsted Rail’s Brenco Inc. A marketing representative for Amsted says the company “…wanted to distinguish the new Brenco Generation 2000 Class K bearing as it was originally placed in field service testing in the mid 1990s. Blue was chosen since it has always been an integral part of the Brenco logo color. The color became so recognized during captiveservice field testing … that we decided to go across the board with blue on all Class K and M bearing production.” – Matt Walker, CSX Transportation locomotive engineer
