Dobies Touts Product Quality, Longevity to Industry Pros
Stucki personnel and products were in the spotlight at the 2025 Nebraska Railcar Teardown at Alliance Railcar Services in Alliance, Neb.
The event, sponsored by the National Coal Transportation Association in August, gave attendees a closeup view of railcar components, their placement and functionality and their potential failure points.
“A teardown is an analysis of the individual parts of a railcar and how they are behaving in light of current service conditions, mileage, service speeds, services routes and other factors,” said STEVE DOBIES, senior vice president of technical services and sales, who serves on the association’s executive committee.
“You have to physically take a car apart to detect certain problems and potential failure areas, and a teardown enables a large group to experience the process jointly.”
Steve was one of the presenters at the event, which featured railcar disassembly and discussions and demonstrations about service and maintenance of cars and their components. More than than 70 industry professionals participated.
Other attendees from Stucki were design engineers GLENN HOLLAND and JORDAN POHLEY and BART GAGOR, director of new product development.
Steve has spoken at numerous teardown events over the years. In addition to talking about railcar parts in general, he discussed Stucki parts and their durability.
“At one point I showed them an actual, original Stucki side bearing that was installed on a car 1997 and had been in service for more than 2 million miles,” he said.
“Even the best customer testimonial doesn’t speak as loudly as that.”
The NCTA provides support and education for coal shippers and transporters that move bulk commodities by rail in North America. Several teardowns take place every year to allow for fleet condition assessment, budget planning, new product trials and industry education.
“The turnout in Nebraska was outstanding and there were a lot of great questions from the attendees,” said Steve.
“It was great for Stucki to be involved and highly beneficial for the rail industry as a whole.”
These Cars Stayed on Track
You could say the rail cars used at the Nebraska Teardown have been around – and around.
“They were pretty special,” said Steve Dobies. “Collectively, they had about 7 million miles of experience.”
It’s not unusual for cars to log as many as 100,000 miles a year, he said. One of the cars used in Nebraska had been on the rails for more than 2.3 million miles – what Steve called an “astronomical” number.
“It takes 24,000 miles to circle the earth at the equator, which means you’d have to go around the world 99 times to travel 2.3 million miles,” he said.
Having cars with that much experience made this year’s teardown a “landmark event.”
“It helped everyone appreciate what a difference superior engineering, manufacturing and maintenance make in our industry,” he said.
