A wagon should not be unloaded before the gate has said who is asking. I learned that at Hollowfast the usual way, by watching a heavy consignment come off its flatbed for a hand not yet checked at the barrier, and then watching the whole siding choke on freight no one was entitled to touch. This day the crews mended that fault in the receiving yard. Heavy loads now stay crated, known by weight and mark only, until the authenticated hand arrives to open them. Nothing is lost by the waiting, and everything after it runs cleaner.
Beside that mending sat a lesser one I will not flatter. The night run into the cold-store had been timing out, and the crews chalked a longer allowance on the board so it could finish. I wrote beside it, in my own hand, band-aid, because that is what it is: a longer wait, and no cure for whatever makes the wait. A board that names its patches truly is a board still worth reading next season.
On a separate plank the founder's rulings for the Alpha were set down in one plain ledger, each with its reason, so that no foreman need guess whose word a decision was. A rehearsal at the Kiln Port was entered in the yard-book as landed, its stale proving-test mended. I count none of it laid until I have watched it roll.