Best way to survey mileposts?

[goodell911]

Ok... I've laid miles and miles of rail, now I want to plant mileposts:

I tried measuring 5280' (US mile) with the ruler... this works just fine for straight sections of track, but gets to be a real pain as you 'add-up' multiple rulers around curves.

Then I got this bright idea that I would measure out 1 mile on a section of straight track, then I built a consist that exactly filled the ruler ends; a "1-Mile" consist. This worked better than the ruler-alone idea... moving the consist along and planting signs as I go.

I found the 1-mile consist idea to be workable; not too bad actually. Then I realized that my DEM maps have specific landmarks and specific mileposts to go along with them... and that DEM maps aren't necessarily to scale. (Note to self: Definately use this method for fictional routes; figure out something else for prototypes.)

I guess for prototype milepost landmarks, I'll need to measure the distance between them and do some math to evenly divide the space between them. For example: I know the milepost for the bridge at point A, and I know the milepost for the depot at point B. If there is 10 miles between them, I'll measure the distance between them and divide it up evenly for mileposts. (What a pain.)

Can anybody offer any advice on how else to survey mileposts? I want them to be realistic, but I don't want to make a career of it (my route is almost 200 prototype miles.)

One more thing... Is there a way to make a ruler spline? It would be great if I could CONTINUE a measurement along ruler spline points; that would solve so much.

~Rick

 

[BidMod]

I think there are trackmarks on the DLS that allow you to survey lengths of track. I'm not sure if they'll do exactly what you want, but they may be worth a look.

 

[HSSRAIL]

Aren't you being a little hasty saying dem maps are not to scale. NED's appear to scale when I have worked with them. In my experience Mileposts are not necessarily spaced 1 mile there are a lot of ways this can happen.

One The mile posts were done by division for example the Erie used Jersey City as a mile post basis up to Port Jervis or the end of the New York Division. The next division used a different mile post basis. If the division basis is changed on one division where the old overlap is the distance might not be one mile.

Two The original route of the Erie Railroad's Main Line to Port Jervis was via Middletown on a line that is torn up. The distance over the Grahm Line which is still in service is longer than via Middletown but the Mile Post for Port Jervis was not changed last I looked. Line relocations will cause some Mileposts to not be one mile.

Three The surveyors who laid out the Mileposts don't know how to measure and made mistakes.

Four the Milepost marker couldn't be placed where they wanted to because there is a river or some other obstruction so they moved it a little to a place where it could better be seen.

There might be other reasons I did not cover but in short the distance between railroad mile posts might not be 1 mile.

 

[goodell911]

I think you are probably right. The difference may be that my tracks don't EXACTLY follow the prototype to the inch.

The problem I'm having is that distances between known landmarks don't add-up, and that it is naturally a pain to measure-out mileposts.

My route lives on DEM baseboards and I'm using track schematics/data directly from the prototype railroad. Things are coming out close enough, I believe, to be satisfying and realistic for the model. I think things will be just fine once I accept that there is going to be some artistic license with the end product.

I guess what I really dream about is a better way to measure distance along splines, rather than just one straight line.

~Rick

 

[HSSRAIL]

There is one other thing which I forgot to mention. You will have to use some artistic judgement when working with Trainz because the Trainz world is flat and the real world is round. Flattening the Dem data and the tiger overlays will result in some distortion. The answer is that producing an absolute perfect prototype layout is impossible with Trainz. That said, I think one can produce a layout with satsfactory results that will retain the feel and character of the prototype using Trainz.

Howard

 

[rockster]

Ok... I've laid miles and miles of rail, now I want to plant mileposts:

I tried measuring 5280' (US mile) with the ruler... this works just fine for straight sections of track, but gets to be a real pain as you 'add-up' multiple rulers around curves.

Then I got this bright idea that I would measure out 1 mile on a section of straight track, then I built a consist that exactly filled the ruler ends; a "1-Mile" consist. This worked better than the ruler-alone idea... moving the consist along and planting signs as I go.

I found the 1-mile consist idea to be workable; not too bad actually. Then I realized that my DEM maps have specific landmarks and specific mileposts to go along with them... and that DEM maps aren't necessarily to scale. (Note to self: Definately use this method for fictional routes; figure out something else for prototypes.)

I guess for prototype milepost landmarks, I'll need to measure the distance between them and do some math to evenly divide the space between them. For example: I know the milepost for the bridge at point A, and I know the milepost for the depot at point B. If there is 10 miles between them, I'll measure the distance between them and divide it up evenly for mileposts. (What a pain.)

Can anybody offer any advice on how else to survey mileposts? I want them to be realistic, but I don't want to make a career of it (my route is almost 200 prototype miles.)

One more thing... Is there a way to make a ruler spline? It would be great if I could CONTINUE a measurement along ruler spline points; that would solve so much.

~Rick

hi, i suggest placing a straight length of track and place trains to the length you require, save as consist, then you can place on the track, with one end at the start at the other end will be your first mile and so on.

depending on how accurate you want to be you may need to try different carraiges to get it right, wont make too much difference to the first few miles but if your route is quite long it could start to get out of sync after a while

cheers

Gav

 

[geophil]

There is one other thing which I forgot to mention. You will have to use some artistic judgement when working with Trainz because the Trainz world is flat and the real world is round. Flattening the Dem data and the tiger overlays will result in some distortion. The answer is that producing an absolute perfect prototype layout is impossible with Trainz. That said, I think one can produce a layout with satsfactory results that will retain the feel and character of the prototype using Trainz.

It depends. In case somebody visualises NED or SRTM DEMs in their native lat/long pseudo projection (aka Plate Carrée) in MicroDEM, scales the images along either the east or north axis alone and then transfers such images to HOG, with or without a TIGER overlay, this would indeed result in huge distortion, like an unwanted wide-screen effect on TV. Hopefully nobody will be doing this.

If you re-project the DEM in MicroDEM to UTM instead before transferring to HOG, the UTM projection will take care of the distortion. In this case a mile will be a mile, independent on the direction of movement and largely independent of the position for the entire UTM zone.

geophil

 

[goodell911]

Thanks for the info Phil... Way beyond me, but it still makes sense in that there are different ways of acheiving a net result; not all of which produce the same results.

I'm using some (great) maps produced by fishlipsatwork. I'm guessing that he knows what he's doing, because I'm not seeing any massive distortion, and I do have Tiger lines. Things seem to be fairly close, just a combination of differences between prototype and my roadbed placement, and my own inexperience.

I think a little artistic license will still produce a superb model and a worthy representation of the real thing.

~Rick

 

[goodell911]

Thanks Gav,

I had a similar idea (paragraph 2 of the quote) and it seemed to work OK.

Appreciate it,

~Rick

 

[goodell911]

That's an interesting idea, appreciate the thought. I wasn't able to locate anything, but I may not have been using the right search keywords.

I am curious what you may have seen...

~Rick

 

[goodell911]

You may be right, if they are off-scale, it isn't by too much.

Perhaps I might be better-off just to use mileposts at landmarks, instead of actually every mile? (although the prototype, BNSF, does mark every single mile.)

~Rick

 

[goodell911]

Excellent point... Thanks Howard.

~Rick

 

[rockster]

Thanks Gav,

I had a similar idea (paragraph 2 of the quote) and it seemed to work OK.

Appreciate it,

~Rick

i must stop skip reading

 

[backyard]

...we have ways of finding things out...

Hello ~Rick,
There is a utility on the DLS calle Track Scanner...kuid2:117746:23230:1

This utility can be placed on the route, and at any location, place another to find the distance.

Sometimes Track Scanner may become confused, however by sliding the scanner to the correct location, I have installed mile posts.

TrainzMap, has an "Anchor" tool, that after scanning the trackwork you can install the anchor, and point to any location on the main trackwork, and will give you distance. Then you use the Add Text function, and label the location, such as mile posts, and print the map. This helps to locate the general area of the placement.

Also, a payware utility called TransDem-20.00Euros($28.xx) is well worth it if you wish to have accurate maps, greatly simplifing rendering of maps, topo grid maps for detail, or even 2km high screenshots from Google Earth.

I am now texturing a BNSF map of the Dutch Subdivision. Mile posts are in place, etc.

Paul Haglund has done a wonderful job on making maps for the Trainz Community. One of the completed maps Fishboy's maps on the DLS is 3801's Crawford Hill.
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[Mouse84]

One The mile posts were done by division for example the Erie used Jersey City as a mile post basis up to Port Jervis or the end of the New York Division. The next division used a different mile post basis. If the division basis is changed on one division where the old overlap is the distance might not be one mile.

Two The original route of the Erie Railroad's Main Line to Port Jervis was via Middletown on a line that is torn up. The distance over the Grahm Line which is still in service is longer than via Middletown but the Mile Post for Port Jervis was not changed last I looked. Line relocations will cause some Mileposts to not be one mile.

FYI, I run on the Southern Tier which is the old Erie main between Jersey City and Buffalo. Last I knew the whole route had the mile posts based on JC. On the section that you spoke of, between Port Jervis and Suffern, has a section that has duplicate mile posts. It's been awhile since I ran down that way, but if I remember correctly, there are about 4 of them. Like it was mentioned, the distance between mileposts are not always exactly 1 mile, some are alittle shorter, some are alittle longer. Our TimeTable has mileposts listed that are exactly 1 mile apart that we use for checking our speedometers.

 

[backyard]

...a footnote to reference material...

Seeking to place track at correct elevation, I purchased the BNSF Powder River Track Charts through e-bay.
Using the "get elevation" tool in Surveyor, I was shocked to find my DEM map was about 350ft below the track chart!
I was puzzled, and figured I had to use the raise elevations in my DEM program.
However, a quick review of NASA World Wind, and Google Earth confirmed my DEM map was correct.
My Dutch Sub map, has high track elevations, and sometimes the roadbed is twice the height of the train. But reviewing the satellite images, along with area videos, confirmed the correct height.
Once you get on a roll in Surveyor, elevations go along very well.
That's the reason I wanted to know exactly where to put the mile posts, even though they may be slightly different from the actual road!

 

[goodell911]

Now THAT is useful! ...and just may be exactly what I've been looking for.

Thanks a bunch,

~Rick

 

[HSSRAIL]

Mouse I had heard on the Erie-Lackawanna forum at Railnet that the Mileposts for the ex Erie were based on Division. The only Employee Timetable I have for the route is for the New York Division.

The post I am referring to is this:


Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:34 am Post subject: According to the excellent series of Larry DeYoung's "EL in Color" books, the highest # "JC xx" MP ever probably would have been Dunkirk, NY, something like "JC 459" (Salamanca would have been "JC 412" (I think), and Dunkirk was 47 miles further west). So perhaps the highest # JC milepost might still be at Salamanca since I think the Salamanca to Dunkirk branch has been abandoned.

Salamanca was the junction of the original Erie route Piermont to Dunkirk and the Atlantic & Great Western, which ran Salamanca west to Dayton, OH. West of Salamanca, Erie mileposts were "S xx" with mileage starting at Salamanca, and going to "S 388" at Dayton.

Mainline milepost mileage restarted again west of Marion to Hammond, originally the Chicago and Atlantic RR. I'm guessing the highest MP west of Marion was "M 249" at Hammond?
johnpbarlow