How many of us actually have and implement a preventative maintenance program for our railroad? I know I have one, as my using the Easy Model Railroading software reminds me that I have entered some dates periodically. But have I really implemented a PM system? For those who know me, I work in the chemicals business, where PM systems are taking very seriously as part of maintaining equipment operational and ultimately quality control.
So one of my winter projects was to drag out all of my tank cars, and start performing PM activities on them. Of course this morphed into adding some weathering efforts and deciding what to do with several of those pesky duplicate tank cars. With a trip to several hobby stores and swap meets in the plans, I ended up with enough new decal sets that I was able to repaint and re-letter all of my duplicates. So I know have six brand new tank cars available for operations.
What about the weathering? Well that work will take a little bit more effort, but I have been weathering wheels, trucks and axles as I can. To date, approximately 1/3 of my 32 available tank cars have had weathering applied this month and I really will try to get the remaining done in the weeks to come.
At the same as I complete the weathering efforts, I have inspected all of the fittings, wheels, trucks, etc and made repair efforts. Again I anticipate having all of these efforts completed in the next 3-4 weeks. Not a bad start, but then I look at all of the remaining 120+ pieces of rolling stock and realize that I really need to start a more periodic and routine PM program.
