PortaCo Hydraulic Power Units & Railroad Tools

PortaCo, Inc. is a Moorhead, Minnesota manufacturer founded in 1978 that builds portable hydraulic power units and railroad track tools for cutting, welding, grinding, drilling, fastening, and clipping work. Goldschmidt Thermit acquired PortaCo in 2013, and the company now operates under the Goldschmidt Group umbrella, where it remains active in the rail-tools market (PortaCo took part in the 2024 NRC Annual Conference). PortaCo builds both OEM equipment and custom-designed power units for railway and other industrial customers. Northern Hydraulics supplies and cross-references PortaCo hydraulic power units and rail tools, including replacement and equivalent parts for older and discontinued models.

Cross-Referencing PortaCo Parts

If you run PortaCo equipment and need a replacement, the fastest path is a cross-reference rather than a model-number hunt. PortaCo’s catalog spans portable hydraulic power units and a full line of rail tools for cutting, welding, grinding, drilling, and rail fastening or clipping, plus bridge-inspection equipment, accessories, and consumables. Because PortaCo now sits inside the Goldschmidt Group, models renamed or retired since the 2013 acquisition can usually be matched to a current equivalent through Goldschmidt’s broader rail-tools portfolio. There are no public PortaCo part-number interchange tables, so we identify equivalents by power-unit displacement and flow class, tool function, and the host equipment the unit drives.

Send us your PortaCo model or part number, a photo, or the spec from the equipment plate, and we will identify a replacement or equivalent that fits your application. Request a PortaCo cross-reference quote and we will return a matched part with pricing.

PortaCo Product Lines & Series

PortaCo organizes its portable hydraulic power units into two model families, with designations that map to specific output classes:

• Prowler Series power units — G-13, G-16, G-18, and G-21. Gasoline-engine portable hydraulic power units sized by output class for field rail work.
• D-Series power units — D-19, D-25, and D-60. Higher-output units carried across the D-25 and D-60 documentation for heavier track applications.

Alongside the power units, PortaCo manufactures railroad cutting tools, welding tools, grinding tools, drilling tools, fastening and loosening tools, clipping tools, and bridge-inspection equipment, supported by accessories and consumables. Searching for a specific Prowler G-series or D-series unit, or a discontinued rail tool? Send the model number and we will match a replacement or equivalent.