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Yesterday, Environmental Lubricants Mfg. Inc. (ELM) and Portec Rail Products Inc. introduced the SoyTrak™ Multi-Season Rail Curve Lubricant, which is designed to eliminate seasonal grease changeovers and tolerate temperatures ranging from 0 to 140 F.

Typically, curve-rail greases used in wayside lubrication systems are available in winter and summer grades. An appropriate grade must be used each season to protect the rail gauge face from extreme wear. But winter greases typically are too thin to be effective in warmer weather and summer greases too thick for cold-weather applications, ELM and Portec Rail officials said in a prepared statement.

SoyTrak™ Multi-Season — formulated with soybean oil — offers high anti-wear qualities, column strength, viscosity and retentivity, and is resistant to rain wash off.

"When SAE5W-30 [motor oil] was introduced it eliminated the need to change engine oil to different viscosity grades in the winter or summer," said ELM President and Chief Executive Officer Lou Honary. "Now, Multi-Season grease would do away with the guess work in ordering grease at seasonal changes and result in tremendous amount of savings."

ELM — the manufacturing arm of the University of Northern Iowa's Ag-Based Industrial Lubricants Research Program — developed SoyTrak Multi-Season in conjunction with Portec Rail and a Class I. Portec Rail is the exclusive distributor of ELM's rail grease products, including the original SoyTrak™ summer and winter lubricants.