Repair Log

I found a couple of copies of the Erie Billing Repair Card form MC 695-K 50M 1-60 from the Salamanca Shop (rubber-stamped at bottom), and I was interested to see what they kept track of.

This was obviously for cars and not locomotives (I need to find one of those forms), so the info choices are probably more straight forward. End is always important when identifying things on a freight car (modeling-wise "B" for brakend end is usually good) and of course what Repairs were made and Why Made. Price and Labor Hours are straightforward as well. It gets interesting in the next column which is Forgings - I guess this activity is either in its own department or maybe it is subcontracted, so it warrants its own category. Period. Rpkg. is a little curiouser. Maybe Periodic Repacking of wheel grease? This is followed by Lumber and then Sp'gs, which I take to be abbreviation for Springs.

I'll have to do a little research, or probably others know what the various designations for equipment type are in the lower left. A.P.R.D. and B.B.S.&B.R.S. is either present or not on a rail car. A quick Google search came up with nothing relevant, so that's a rainy day research item. I assume it has something to do with either brakes, suspension or wheels. Any thoughts?

So before I had a copy of this, I had created my own sort of form for basic tracking and organization of activities. My Shop Form just keeps track of bare essentials: Equipment identification, Work Order description and when it was Completed. It conveniently leaves out other things like  when the order was put in and how much it costs to make the repair. I'm not sure if I want to know these items, but it would be useful as motivation and basic record keeping. I am not inclined to keep track of labor hours unless it is maybe a special project. For instance, the year-long trial and error troubleshooting with what I am assuming now is just a bad decoder at this point would only hurt and not help my motivation or enjoyment factor.

The Requisition Form is already geared towards trying to be more rigorous in approaching expenditures and prioritization. The thought was that I couldn't buy anything unless it was on the list, and by default, it would make me consider its priority. That hasn't worked out, but mainly because the list got buried under the Shop Orders list at my work bench.

I only remember what I see in front of my face, so I'm devoting an extra push pin to separate the two forms now.