I also want to take a moment to tank Pat Dugan for his nearly 20 years of service to Wabtec.
Total sales for the quarter were $1.9 billion driven by growing demand in freight services and components but offset by continued weakness in the North America OE end market.
Adjusted operating margin was 17% driven by strong mix and productivity, ongoing lean initiatives and cost actions.
Total cash flow from operations was $244 million this takes year-to-date cash from operations to $759 million versus $458 million a year ago.
Cash conversion for the year is at 103%.
Finally, we ended third quarter with adjusted earnings per share of $1.14 up 20% year-over-year.
Today, we're also pleased to share that we have achieved our $250 million synergy run rate, a full-year earlier than expected at the time of the GE Transportation acquisition.
About 21% of the North American railcar fleet remains in storage a slight improvement from the previous quarter and in line with pre-COVID levels.
We forecast the railcar built this year will be in the neighborhood of 30,000 cars.
An example of this is our Green Friction technology which drastically reduces brake emissions by up to 90% an incredible milestone and significantly improving the quality of the air in our metros.
We're also leading the change to create a safer and more efficient rail network; a great example of this and a solution of growing interest among Class 1 customers is Trip Optimizer Zero-to-Zero.
These advanced technology allows an operator to autonomously start a train from 0 miles per hour and stop it using software integrated with positive train control.
It builds on Trip Optimizer's proven performance which has saved railroads more than 400 million gallons of fuel since inception and reduces emissions by over 500,000 tons per year.
In Freight Services, we want a significant long-term service contract as well as an order for 100 locomotive modernizations in North America.
We believe that our enterprise revenues were to 2% to 3% lower than they would have been without the supply chain disruptions and that the majority of these lower revenues represent delayed sales, not lost sales.
First, commodity inflation; where markets year-over-year are up more than 200% for steel, 94% for aluminum and roughly 40% for copper.
The second area of impact is elevated freight and logistics costs, which in many cases are up over 3 times to 4 times from pre-COVID levels.
We estimate that cost increases in the third quarter are in the range of $15 million to $20 million.
We had good operational and financial performance during the quarter, sales for the third quarter were $1.91 billion, which reflects a 2.2% increase versus the prior year.
For the quarter adjusted operating income was $325 million which was up 10.6% versus the prior year.
Most notably, we delivered margin expansion in both our segments, up 1.3 percentage points on a consolidated basis.
As Rafael stated during the quarter, we achieved our goal of $50 million of synergy run rate a significant milestone delivered a full year earlier than originally forecasted.
Looking at some of the detailed line items for the third quarter; adjusted SG&A was $257 million which was up $16.1 million from the prior year due to the normalization of certain expenses, higher incentive compensation and employee benefit costs and the acquisition of Nordco.
For the full year, we expect SG&A to be about 12.25% of sales, adjusted SG&A excludes $12 million of restructuring and transition expenses, of which most was allocated to further optimize our European footprint.
Our 2021 investment in technology, which includes engineering expense remains at 67% of sales.
Amortization expense was $72.5 million and our adjusted effective tax rate during the quarter was 24.8%, bringing our year-to-date adjusted effective tax rate to 25.8%.
For the full year, we still expect an effective tax rate of about 26% excluding discrete items.
In the third quarter, GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.69 and adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.14 up 20% versus prior year.
Across the Freight segment, total sales increased 4.7% from last year to $1.3 billion, primarily driven by continued strong growth at our services and component businesses.
In terms of product lines, equipment sales were down 5.7% year-over-year due to fewer locomotive deliveries this quarter versus last year and no new locomotive deliveries in North America, partially offset by strong mining sales.
In line with an improved outlook for rail, our services sales grew a robust 13.6% versus last year.
Excluding Nordco, organic sales for the third quarter were up 6.1%.
Digital Electronics sales were down 3.6% year-over-year driven by delays in purchase decisions due to economic and cost uncertainties as well as chip shortages.
Component sales continued to show recovery and were up 6.7% year-over-year driven by demand for railcar components and recovery in industrial end markets.
Shifting to operating income for the segment; Freight segment adjusted operating income was $266 million for an adjusted margin of 20.6%, up 1.7 percentage points versus the prior year.
Finally, segment backlog was $18.2 billion, up $375 million from the prior quarter and the broad multiyear order momentum that Rafael discussed across the segment.
Turning to Slide 11, across our Transit segment sales decreased 2.5% year-over-year to $612 million.
Adjusted segment operating income was $77 million, which resulted in an adjusted operating margin of 12.5%, up 50 basis points versus prior year.
For the year, we remain committed to deliver about 100 basis points of margin improvement for the segment and the team continues to take aggressive action to mitigate rising costs and supply chain disruption, which will pressure the pace of near term margin improvement.
Finally Transit segment backlog for the quarter was $3.6 billion, which was flat with the prior quarter after adjusting for the negative effect of foreign exchange.
We generated $244 million of operating cash flow during the quarter, bringing year-to-date cash flow generated to over $759 million.
During the quarter, total capex was $23 million bringing year-to-date capex to $78.5 million.
In 2021, we now expect capex to be approximately $120 million.
This is $20 million lower than our previous guidance as the team judiciously manages every dollar of spend.
Our adjusted net leverage ratio at the end of the third quarter was 2.6 times and our liquidity is robust at $1.62 billion.
Also during the quarter we returned capital to shareholders, repurchasing $199 million of shares.
We expect sales of $7.9 billion to $8.05 billion and adjusted earnings per share to be between $4.20 and $4.30 per share.
We expect cash flow conversion to remain greater than 90% resulting in strong cash generation of about $1 billion for the full year.

Summary:
Finally, we ended third quarter with adjusted earnings per share of $1.14 up 20% year-over-year.
We had good operational and financial performance during the quarter, sales for the third quarter were $1.91 billion, which reflects a 2.2% increase versus the prior year.
In the third quarter, GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.69 and adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.14 up 20% versus prior year.
We expect sales of $7.9 billion to $8.05 billion and adjusted earnings per share to be between $4.20 and $4.30 per share.