So if I read this correctly the total in fines are 25 million dollars....not really chump change in anybody's book.
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Contract car repair facilities need to be audited periodically. Same goes for contract train yard inspection. Savvy car owners thoroughly inspect a car en route to a contract facility to see what really needs to be done, and compare that to what the contractor actually bad-orders and repairs. Off-line repairs on railroad owned cars have to be reported for payment to a bureau of the AAR, which can see if certain car department locations are making more than normal repairs to foreign line cars.
I wondered how those other companies found out?
Randomly selecting cars for complete rebuild to "zero-time" status regardless of status is a possible quality control protocol. I would like to hear their side of the story.
At least it was for repairs that weren't needed, not covering up defective equipment. auto shops do that frequently.
As a Caterpillar employee, this is embarrassing and disgusting.
Geese! don't railways have their own car departments anymore?
Gregg posted:Geese! don't railways have their own car departments anymore?
No. Plus there are tons of privately owned rail cars (think coal bathtub gondolas), that require contractors to maintain/repair all those cars.
Railroad RIP tracks will still perform running repairs on rail cars whether railroad owned or private.
Since the advent of WILD detectors, I have been convinced railroads are using wheel replacement on private cars as a new revenue source.
Curt
Curt what's a WILD detector? And of course the car dept still does brake tests at the initial terminals.
Gregg:
Wheel Impact Load Detector. They are a wayside device intended to identify wheels that are defective or developing flat spots and have them changed out before they can damage the rail head or possibly contribute to a derailment.
I first saw one of these devices at the Transportation Technology Center out in Pueblo, CO back around 2000 or 2001 when AAR was working to develop the technology. They are fairly common on most Class 1 main lines now and broadcast an electronic message to the train crew in much the same manner a dragging equipment or hot box detector would.
Curt
Thank you Curt..... We used to call cars with flat spots ...Thumpers... Most flats spots were caused by switching crews moving the car with the hand brake still applied, sometimes a sticking brake or emergency brake application.
At the meeting point on single track both trains would get a pretty going over()inspection) There were rules about the length of the flat spots determining whether the car had to set out or allowed to continue on....
thump thump thump 
