FACTORY VISIT
Far left: a weld fracture on a
fabricated axle; left, planetary
gearing; below, New Age axle
destined for the US market
Solutions for a new age
The Editor reports on a British company that is doing good business in the US.
PRM-Newage (or PRM-Marine – it all
rather depends upon which sector is
important to you) has a somewhat
convoluted history. Today, it is a very
well-known name on the American ramp,
but its products are discreet and rarely
sighted. Axles, its stock-in-trade, are not
the most conspicuous of addenda, yet are
vital for the vehicles that serve aircra at a
host of airports across the Atlantic.
As a GSE component supplier, the
company is just over 11 years old although
its origins date back to the early twentieth
century. e PRM part comprised the
initials of its founder, one Percy Riley, the
son of Lord Riley of vehicle manufacture
fame. e son majored in transmissions
and engines, thereby laying the foundation
stones for the current business.
e UK’s Midlands, the home of
engineering and car building, saw in the
1960s many car manufacturing companies
change hands or become absorbed by
bigger entities: BMC took over Riley and
subsequently discarded the moniker,
although Riley continued to make
marine gearboxes as well as rudimentary
gearboxes for o -highway dump trucks
and the like. e acquisition of Newage, a
Scottish company making axles, in 1972,
was deemed a useful move, for it enabled
the company to produce a complete
construction driveline for vehicles.
e construction side of the industry
nosedived in 2008 because of stagnation
in the housing market, with the demand
for o -road machinery all but drying
up. New owners, Rob Turner and Colin
Howell, stepped in and relaunched the
enterprise under the fresh company name
of PRM-Newage. “ ankfully the marine
side was still buoyant,” recalls Turner.
“Marine orders kept on coming through
but so did the occasional request for
axles and gearboxes.” e company was
(and still is) one of just a handful of axle
manufacturers in the UK, it should be
noted.
www.groundhandling.com 61
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