Checking the wheels

This weekend I was reminded of an anecdote told to me by a colleague many years ago, about his experiences on a long journey in the Trans-Siberian.

As many of you will know, the Trans-Siberian Railway (or Транссибирская магистраль, Транссиб in Russian) is the 9,288 km railway network that crosses Russia from west to east, linking with Mongolia and China. Due to the arduous nature of the journey, the locomotives are changed every so often along the route, and the bogies, the structure on which the wagons rest and where the wheels are located.

The method for verifying that the bogies The fact that all the carriages of the train are in good condition may seem rather crude at first glance, but it is very effective: operators go through all the carriages of the train, striking with a steel bar each of the bogies.

These workers are so attuned to the characteristic noise of metal that they can detect any subtle anomalies in the structure based on the sound it emits, adjusting the components of the mechanism so that the “noise” is correct.

Apparently, my colleague was put out of his mind by this routine and deafening ceremony, as the operators, once the route was finished, would calmly and parsimoniously gather at the side of the convoy to visually review the work done. The guys took their time, enjoying the moment with a certain attitude of comforting camaraderie for a job well done.

In these times of immovable deadlines, and the rush to get the project launched as soon as possible and get results, do any of you remember the last time you have calmly and carefully reviewed one of your projects? Wouldn't you have saved yourselves a lot of headaches if you had taken the necessary time to review the work?

 

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