Real-Life Decision Making
For many locomotive mechanics, safety is a prime concern. Most spend a
fair amount of their time doing safety inspections. They make sure that locomotives
are safe to travel the rails.
But the need for safety is always being balanced against the desire to
keep the railroads running, to keep the goods they carry moving.
You're the chief mechanic at a short-line railroad service. The line
runs mainly freight, but the rails pass through several residential neighborhoods
and cross several busy streets.
This morning, two locomotives need your immediate attention. You make quick
inspection passes of both and determine that neither is ready to travel the
rails right now.
The rail yard supervisor calls you in for a meeting to express his concerns.
The two locomotives are the only ones at this end of the line right now. Without
at least one of them, the railroad will have to shut down until an engine
can be brought from the other end of the line. That would mean a three-hour
delay that will cost thousands of dollars.
You go back to the hangar and meet with some of your mechanics. You know
that completely fixing either engine will be an eight-hour undertaking. You
could do a quick repair that would probably keep the axle in place for a single
trip down the line. That would take about an hour.
You could do a more extensive fix by transferring the unbroken axle of
one train to the other. That operation would take about two hours, but would
be somewhat safer. Or you could order a complete fix: the installation of
new axles, which would take eight hours each.
What do you do?