Notes to Self

[Handy Don 15,110]

4 hours ago, JoeM said:

I have a orange tag that ties to the key saying "no oil".

Our village is home to a major railroad equipment maintenance facility that occasionally invites the public for tours.

One year I learned that when mechanics begin work on a train that must be completed and inspected before the train can be moved, the mechanic hangs his name tagged blue-flashing lantern on the controls. Only the mechanic should ever remove it.  

[ebinmaine 75,665]

1 minute ago, Handy Don said:

Our village is home to a major railroad equipment maintenance facility that occasionally invites the public for tours.

One year I learned that when mechanics begin work on a train that must be completed and inspected before the train can be moved, the mechanic hangs his name tagged blue-flashing lantern on the controls. Only the mechanic should ever remove it.  

 

 

Their version of  LOTO. 

 

Lock

Out

Tag

Out

 

 

 

[Handy Don 15,110]

11 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Their version of  LOTO. 

Lock

Out

Tag

Out

As a regular commuter in those days, I was very reassured at the standards for maintaining both worker and rider safety and for high-quality repairs. That particular part of the operation had gone hundreds of days without a lost time injury to a worker or a delay-causing repair failure. It put a new light on the inconvenience/crowding for riders like me when a normally 8-car consist was shortened to 6-cars because of maintenance backlogs. 

[ebinmaine 75,665]

6 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

As a regular commuter in those days, I was very reassured at the standards for maintaining both worker and rider safety and for high-quality repairs. That particular part of the operation had gone hundreds of days without a lost time injury to a worker or a delay-causing repair failure. It put a new light on the inconvenience/crowding for riders like me when a normally 8-car consist was shortened to 6-cars because of maintenance backlogs. 

 

I now enjoy working for a company that has a predominantly scheduled maintenance mentality. 

Many places were (still are) drive it til it breaks or won't pass inspection on or off road. 

The machine is GOING to need repairs. Period. 

Fixing when we WANT to as opposed to the NEED is so much better.  

 

 

[JoeM 9,286]

16 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

Many places were (still are) drive it til it breaks

Thirty some years ago I afforded and opportunity for promotion to maintenance planner. The company I worked for wanted to switch from reactive to proactive maintenance. 

Let me tell you....... that was one tough transformation. It took the better part of a year to convince the maintenance personal, foreman to mechanics, that it was better to service, change filters and make repairs before things became big issues. Prior to, it was just firefighting maintenance.

 

I told the personal that we are a maintenance company, the operators are our customers. It was our responsibility to hand the operator a safe functioning machine.

In to the second year it really turned around, equipment was safe and ran good. Production went up and maintenance cost down. We had about 300 pieces of machinery in the fleet.

 

I always made myself available to talk to the operators. No one knew the equipment better. Well after all, they spent more time with those machines than their wife's. 

 

 

So spend some time with you tractor today!

 

 

[WHX?? 53,259]

4 hours ago, JoeM said:

So spend some time with you tractor today!

Well oookkkk ...if you insist. 

[JoeM 9,286]

3 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

Well oookkkk ...if you insist. 

Hey maybe, just maybe we can get the gov to assign a date as a national holiday. "spend some time with your tractor day" 

[Handy Don 15,110]

Mount plow - ✅

Mount chains - ✅

Mount centering guide - ✅

Check all bolts and pins - 

Happily start plowing snow and after 20 minutes wonder why one end of the plow won’t lift -- ✅

Stop and investigate and discover lower pivot bolt missing - ✅