a specialized lathe for turning the wheels of made-up wheel pairs for railroad rolling stock. Wheel lathes are used for turning the rolling profile, flange, and inner face of whole-rolled and banded wheels and in manufacturing new wheel pairs, as well as in restoring (turning) worn wheel pairs.

Wheel lathes are built for car wheel and locomotive pairs. They have a symmetrical dual drive (to both wheels), with mechanical or hydraulic grips, and two or four carriages. In the latter instance, two carriages are stripping carriages for rough-turning tools, and two carriages are profiling supports for finishing profiling tools. Cup-shaped and prismatic tools are used as the profiling tools; they are driven by the mechanical or hydraulic profiling device. The turning of worn wheel pairs without rolling them out from under the locomotive trucks (the weight of the locomotive is lifted off the pair, and the pair is then raised from the tracks) is done with a wheel lathe of simplified design, driven by the traction electric motor directly through the driven gear of the traction reduction gear, located on the axle of the wheel pair.