Patent ID: 7627546

Claim:
A method for inspecting rail equipment, storing information relating to the inspection and automatically generating a repair disposition report comprising: providing rail equipment having a plurality of parts; inspecting the rail equipment to determine a damage condition of each of the parts of the rail equipment; providing a data entry system comprising a plurality of fields; providing a database interconnected with the data entry system to store information input into the data entry system and generated by the data entry system; querying a user of the data entry system for information relating to the damage condition of each of the parts of the rail equipment; entering information relating to the damage condition of each of the parts of the rail equipment into each of the plurality of fields; and wherein the data entry system: calculates an overall damage condition of the rail equipment from the information input into the data entry system; automatically assigns one of a plurality of dispositions to the rail equipment based on the overall damage condition of the rail equipment, wherein the plurality of dispositions includes not repairing the rail equipment, repairing the rail equipment using a mobile repair unit and repairing the rail equipment at a repair facility, wherein the mobile repair unit is a vehicle equipped to provide mechanical services to the rail equipment without requiring the rail equipment to be moved to a repair facility; and generates at least one report showing the overall damage condition of the rail equipment and the disposition automatically assigned by the data entry system to the rail equipment.