As a public transportation organization, railway systems are legally bound by two basic principles which stipulate that they must "maintain their facilities in a manner so as to ensure that all operations can be performed safely" and maintain their administrative organizations so that their fixed capital assets are "in a good state and used in a way so as to ensure the maximum effectiveness".
Railway transportation is by its very nature a highly public organization with a great social responsibility that arises from the many passengers and freight that it is entrusted with. It is imperative that safety and reliability be primary in all operations.
Railcars are generally highly resistant to deterioration and have a long useful life. They are maintained with a view to preventing failures and accidents and keeping their inherent parts in top working order. However, it is not possible to entirely prevent deterioration of facilities and the natural outmoding of systems that occurs as new ones are developed and introduced into service. It is therefore vital that they be maintained with a view to constantly seeking increased modernization of facilities and improvement of functions. Therefore, productivity must be considered and when new units are being produced it is not enough to consider functional maintenance. Rather one must aggressively consider ways to improve performance, increase the level of maintenance and keep up with the latest technological developments at all times.
(1) Deterioration and repair
In general, the cycle that machines experience from their introduction to service until being withdrawn from service is as outlined in Fig. 1-1.
