Miner joins the century club - draft gear manufacturer Miner Enterprises Inc. celebrates 100 years

Railway Age, June, 1994 by Robert E. Tuzik

One hundred years after William H. Miner started the business, Miner is producing 6,000 new and reconditioned draft gears a month and a broad line of other products.

In order to reach the century mark in this, or any other, industry, a company must consistently meet its customers' needs. This month, Miner Enterprises, Inc., celebrates its 100th anniversary of doing just that.

Although the company makes a range of products, including side bearings, hopper discharge gates, and elastomer products for the railway, automotive, and other industries, draft gears are Miner's bread and butter.

Miner has had the inside track on manufacturing draft gear from the start: The company's founder, William H. Miner, invented the tandem spring draft rigging, the first reliable protection device for railcars. And since filling its first order for draft rigging on 10 cars for the Chicago, New York, and Boston Refrigerator Co. in 1894, Miner has grown draft gear manufacturing into a healthy business. The company currently produces about 6,000 new and reconditioned units per month at its manufacturing plant in Geneva, Ill., and does business with every major manufacturer, railroad and private car owner.

* Lighter, stronger. Miner's W. H. Miner Division produces several types of draft gear for varying car types and operating conditions. And as car manufacturers build lighter, stronger cars, Miner has worked to build lighter, more durable draft gear. The company's TF-880 draft gear, which is used primarily on hopper cars, for example, weighs about 100 pounds less than the standard, 360-pound 22-piece, all steel draft gear. "That provides a weight reduction of 200 pounds per car," Joseph G. Stark, vice president, W. H. Miner Division, points out.

A key component of the TF-880 and several other Miner products is a material called TeesPak[R], Thermoplastic Elastomer Compression Spring Package. This elastomer spring material is also being used to produce constant-contact side bearings to provide protection against truck hunting on standard and articulated cars, railcar buffers and traction springs for the European railway market, and assorted materials for the automotive market. Miner is currently looking at using a combination TecsPak/hydraulic spring unit in draft gears to increase shock protection and to replace nitrogen gas returns, which are prone leakage, Stark says.

Miner also manufactures a number of discharge gates for covered grain, chemical, coal, and ballast hoppers at its Powerbrace America subsidiary plant in Kenosha, Wis. The AutoLOK[TM] slide outlet get for unloading grain and other commodities that Miner introduced last year was the first gate of its type approved for AAR specification S-233-92. The company also has been a primary supplier of bottom-dump mechanisms, with more than 5,500 cars operating in unit coal trains equipped with the AutoMEC[R] discharge system in the U.S. Miner has equipped another 1,250 or so coal hoppers with the AutoMEC system in Canada, India, and Brazil.

* On the m/w side. Miner has equipped more than 8,000 carsets with air-powered AggreGate[TM] ballast unloading gates. The AggreGate system, which is used on virtually every major railroad, is available with a solar powered, remote radio control that allows maintenance personnel to operate individual cars, or gates, and to control ballast flow - inside or outside the rail - from distances as far as 300 feet away.

Miner's Research and Development Department regularly performs quality checks on its product lines. TecsPak products, for example, are randomly pulled and tested for 1,000 cycles. Miner materials are also temperature tested in a several-hundred-degrees furnace and in a -40 degree freezer.

In order to meet AAR approval, draft gears undergo about 25 million pounds of impact testing and two years, or 100,000 miles, of field testing. If they meet specifications when they are pulled and inspected, they receive AAR approval. Even products that have been sold for years are pulled from the assembly line and randomly tested.

Miner's Research and Development Department operates one of the four railcar test ramps in the world to test the ability of railcars and car components to withstand rolling impacts. The ramp, which is 30 feet high at the top, can be used to accelerate two 100-ton freight cars up to 16 mph before impact. The cars are often instrumented and data is downloaded and analyzed. Miner also has a one-million-pound squeeze tester and has done work for car manufacturers and the AAR to ensure that newly designed cars are structurally sound.

Despite the longevity of its product line, Miner has not been standing still. The company produces more than 200 TecsPak products, and is finding a growing international market.

Overall, Miner's international sales have tripled within the past few years, accounting for as much as 20% of the company's annual business (Miner treats Canada and Mexico as domestic markets). In 1992, Miner earned the prestigious President's "E" Award for its success in generating export business.