A car owner's repair approval request, drafted from your inspection findings and that owner's written rules.

Your inspector walks the car and records what is wrong. Your office then writes it up for the car owner: car initials and number, each defect and where it sits on the car, the work your shop proposes, and whatever that owner's written instructions say needs its say-so. Then the car waits for a yes, a no or a change.

In the test, AI reads copies of those findings and drafts the approval request: the defects as recorded, the work lines your shop proposed, the owner's written threshold or instruction each line falls under, and the items a person must confirm before it goes. Nothing is sent, no repair is chosen and no live estimate is opened.

The yes can belong to more than one party. On a tank car, 49 CFR 180.503 makes the owner the person the reporting marks are assigned to in the Universal Machine Language Equipment Register. It separately names a service equipment owner, who bears the cost of maintaining loading, venting and pressure relief equipment, and a coating or lining owner, who carries financial responsibility for the lining. Section 180.513 has the facility get the equipment owner's permission before work affecting repair, alteration, conversion or qualification. So the draft names who each line goes to and leaves a blank where the file doesn't say. Marks move as well: Railinc's repair shop FAQ describes the new and former mark owners both being notified when a car is restenciled in Umler.

Not every repair needs the same yes, or the same price. The Railway Supply Institute's 2020 newsletter on the Interchange Rules describes running repairs as non-discretionary work that a handling railroad or registered agent may perform and bill, with limits on the hours of heavier work done without first securing car owner authority. Most major accident and derailment repairs happen in contract shops, which still bill them at Office Manual pricing, while pricing for owner's repairs is a matter of contract between the two parties, though the repairs themselves still have to comply with AAR rules. The draft marks each line by what your records say it is, and asks where they don't.

The car arrives with paper already on it. A defective car moved for repair carries a tag under 49 CFR 215.9, marked "bad order" or "home shop for repairs", with the reporting mark and number, the inspecting railroad, the place and date, the nature of each defect, movement restrictions and the destination. A damaged car can add an electronic defect card; Railinc's FAQ says AAR Rule 115 has required those since 2011 and a paper card no longer counts. When your inspector finds more than the card lists, the FAQ says to ask the car mark owner for permission first. The draft keeps card lines and added findings in separate groups.

The codes set the price later, so they can't drift now. Railinc's Billing Repair Card guide, updated in February 2026, says the AAR price on a line follows from the repair date, job code, why made code, responsibility code and condition code, and contract work goes through as manual pricing. The price has to match the Price Master in force on the repair date, and the RSI newsletter notes that the matrix is issued quarterly. Field Manual Appendix D, the American Rail Car Institute codes, revised April 1, 2026 and kept up quarterly by an RSI task force, adds job codes for repairs the standard AAR list leaves out, among them bottom outlet valves, manway covers and interior coatings and linings, with why made codes such as 25 for owner's request and 33 for derailment damage under Rule 95. Railinc's page on it says those codes carry neither a material nor a labor price and that the Interchange Rules don't make them mandatory, and several of its sections simply send the shop to the car owner for criteria. The draft carries the codes your estimator wrote and flags a line with none.

What your reviewer will watch. Does each defect keep your inspector's words and its place on the car? Does every work line trace to a finding, with nothing added? Is the owner's own rule named for each threshold, and is any line that rule doesn't settle held back? Rule 112 of the Office Manual covers exceptions taken after a bill settles, so the request is the paper a billed line gets held against. Nothing on this page is legal or engineering advice.

With your reviewer's yes, cars arriving over the next 30 days or so get the same draft.

Someone on your staff approves each request before it reaches a car owner, and your inspector's findings and your shop manager's decisions stay exactly where they are today.

Another job, if you want one, is its own decision at its own price, with monthly support after that.