G3750 posted:Mark Boyce posted:John,
You’re not being a pain at all. This is why I posted it all, for someone else to look it over and see something Dave and I missed. Good catch! I never noticed. Yes I have read of just the problem you mention about the main on the diverging track being the cause of derailments. I’ll look that over for a better way tomorrow.
This is an example of what we run into at work. No one wants to pay for enough engineers and technicians to have “a second set of eyes” look at anything like we did 30, 40, 42 years ago. We end up with egg on our face too often. Here we have the luxury of a dozen set of eyes looking at it!
Thank you!
Mark is exactly right. The point of reviewing designs is defect prevention. The graph below, although specific to software development, is mostly correct for any significantly-sized system - problems found early are easier and less costly to fix.
For example in Panhandle 1.0 had my decision to use 11/32" plywood subroadbed been reviewed by others, it's likely that my poor choice would have been caught. And I would have been spared 5 years of rebuilding the layout.
George
George, Yes I got into a discussion with a company trainer back before I took the severance package and came back as a temp engineer. There were people in the seminar from various disciplines, and the trainer asked us each to name something we didn't like about how we have to do our work. Well mine was no second person to review work before it goes out. Well I thought it was an innocent comment, but she really jumped on mine. She gave the company's view that the work gets corrected eventually, so who needs someone to review. It will all come out in the wash. As you pointed out, Maintenance is a high cost, and evidently the company is ignoring that. Maybe because the cost comes from a different budget is all I can guess. I could go on, but you and I see things the same way. I just thought I would share that little incident.
I did feel bad when I learned a few months later that this trainer, whose office was in California and ours of course in Pennsylvania, had passed away suddenly of some before undetected malady in her mid 60s. She did her work with such enthusiasm; it was sad.
