Found on the web is a very good description of the wheelshop. From a 1970's article:

A visitor entering the door of Southern's Coster Wheel Shop, at Knoxville, Tenn., is immediately impressed with a sense of ordered efficiency even before he fully realizes that practically all operations are being carried on automatically.

The ordered efficiency was what Southern was seeking about ten years ago when its shop engineers and production experts were given the difficult task of designing a central shop point which would handle all the wheel work for the System.

It would have been easy - rr, at least, easier - merely to refine existing practices, spend a lot of money on new machines, layout a production line and sit back to admire a polished - up version of the way things had always been done.

Hundreds of visitors from railroads in this and other countries have been proof that Southern did much more than this. The wheel shop at Coster is distinctly and notably an only-one-of-its-kind example of automation put to work to do an important railroad job extremely well.

The sets of wheels that go under railroad cars can't be just slapped together. They are critical factors in safe performance of trains moving over the railroad. Railroaders have always known this and have steadily improved the quality of wheels and axles with the help of manufacturers in the supply industry. Work done in all wheel shops always was and is done to the best of the abilities of workmen and the tools with which they could be supplied. But it is clear that workers and their supervisors are not always equally skillful and the tooling of various shops is not always equally modern and efficient in achieving the degree of precision required.

Southern recognized an opportunity for progress in the late 1950's when it was clear that a number of wheel shops then scattered over the System were in need of substantial and expensive upgrading. It was a good time to consider innovation. And Southern did. Coster wheel shop resulted.

There is a steady flow into Coster of mounted wheels that have been removed from under cars because they show signs of wear going beyond normal tolerances or have been reclaimed from cars being scrapped. And there also ate new wheels and axles received from manufacturers. Coster's job is to convert these "raw materials", into carefully prepared sets of mounted wheels for shipment to points of use throughout the System.

Reclamation of serviceable axles and wheels for reuse requires removal of wheels from axles in the demount house where an experienced inspector determines what use, if any, will be made of what has been shipped in from the field. This inspection point is "sandwiched" in between two major automated activities. Used wheel sets have been brought to the shop on special wheel cars that go onto a track where an unloader is started up that will automatically clear the car of the 38 pairs of wheels each carries. When a car is emptied, the unloader shuts itself off automatically.

The wheel sets are delivered from the unloader to an endless chain conveyor that carries them through a washing operation and delivers them to a feed track leading to the inspection station.

As inspection determines what use will be made of the demounted wheels and axles, the inspector pushes appropriate buttons on a control panel to direct further movement into storage racks to await machining or to a scrap car to be hauled away to purchasers of scrap steel.

Axles vary in size according to the weights they will be expected to carry and it is the practice at Coster to run at least one full shift operation on axles of the same dimensions. Sometimes, depending upon demand, several shifts will be run.

Axles from the appropriate storage racks are fed automatically into the system. Further cleaning is done automatically after which a conveyor carries axles to three automatic axle lathes. What goes on then was described in a technical paper delivered to a railroad group soon after the shop went into operation.

"An axle is automatically loaded into the lathe from the lathe storage and then 'probed.' This is accomplished by a bracket holding several templates closing in against the journal and wheel seat, The location of the templates is automatically set by the size of the surfaces to be machined and then automatically locked into place.

"A stylus then follows the contour of the templates and thus reproduces the desired machined surface on the axle. Three cutting tools are used--one for the end collar, journal and fillet; one for the dust-guard surface and fillet; and one for the wheel seat.

"These tools cut in succession, not simultaneously. The wheel-seat tool automatically removes .030 in. The dust-guard tool automatically removes .020 in. The journal tool removes only as much stock as is necessary to clean up the journal up to a maximum of .045 in. If the .045 in. cut will not clean the journal, then the tool cuts down to the next step size. For a 5 1/2 - in. journal, it will cut down to 5 in."

An operator changes the tools on all three machines as change is required.

Journal surfaces on axles must have almost a mirror finish and this is obtained on an automatic burnishing machine to which axles are conveyed automatically after they leave the journal lathes. Automatic and personal inspections follow this operation. Ultra-sonic tests for flaws in the axle are made automatically and an inspector on duty is signaled if a defect is indicated. Visual inspection follows and wet magnetic particle testing is done by the inspector. When all tests have been passed, an axle moves onto another conveyor on its way to the mounting press.

There is a stop at a mesauring station where a machine "feels" each wheel seat on the axle to determine its size. The information is electronically transmitted to two boring mills, each of which bores a wheel for one end of the axle. Again, the operations are automatic with a roller conveyor for each boring mill. These are so interlocked that wheels can be loaded only in pairs havmg the same "tape" or wheel circumference.

The same officer quoted earlier described operations at the mounting press where precisely machined wheels and axles are brought together to complete wheel sets.

"After the mills machine the wheels, they are unloaded into roller conveyors which move them down to the press. They are set up in the vertical plane by shop built 'tip-up' machines, receiving coatings of white lead on the 'wheel fits' in a machine also built at the shop. Then they roll into the press. In the meantime, as soon as the boring mills have discharged the bored wheels, the measuring station releases the axle and it also rolls into the press, also receiving a coat of white lead.

"The press is completely automatic and mounts the wheels on the axle one after the other. The pressure gages and recording tape are located at a constantly - manned console in the center of the shop. After the press has mounted both wheels, the pair is discharged out an automatic door in the wall and then each journal receives a coat of rust preventative from an automatic machine.

"The wheel set is discharged onto a wheel carriage which moves it to one of 23 storage tracks. The storage track is selected by the console operator who pushes a button which makes the carriage take the finished wheel pairs to that track until another button is pushed, or until the track is filled, giving an alarm buzzer and red light to the console operator. If a wheel pair should fail to fall within the proper limits, the console operator pushes a 'Reject' button."

Complete information about the functioning of all parts of Coster wheel shop's machines and other equipment is available at the console located in the center of the shop. Here, a console operator literally has shop operations at his finger tips. Signal light indicators alert him to any variations from expected performance norms and enable him to take prompt remedial action when any is required.

The same wheel cars that bring in used sets of wheels to the shop are used for the outbound movement of mounted wheels to shop points and repair tracks. Complete uniformity in quality of workmanship has been achieved and there no longer can be the kinds of uncertainties that existed in the days before a centralized operation of this very important work was undertaken on Southern.

Few production plants of any sort in this country - in or out of the railroad industry - can surpass Southern's Coster Wheel Shop in the application of modern technology represented in its planning and its efficient performance.