diningcar (4-8A):
Back in 1959-1960 the clean air must have been invigorating to work in.
I thought your reference to 45 degree angles for slope cut-work must be a standard. Currently, Highway 138 in Cajon Pass here in Southern California is being rerouted in the Summit area, and recently in photographing that work new 45 degree slopes were encountered.
Continued …
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
Continued diningcar (4-8A):
You aptly described how the surveying industry was in 1959-1960. It was crude, but you got the job done. Circa 1990 when I was slightly involved with surveying, the GPS miracle units were just starting to be used. Now, they are everywhere. And, there is a lack of people to sites too, with just small teams.
The first surveyors must have had crude equipment when first laying out that now abandoned Transcon line in Arizona, and used charts as you did.
Now, it is all done automatically for the surveyors with GPS based units. It is unknown if the following is a GPS unit too, but it strikes this contributor as surveyor related. The below photo was shot in San Gabriel, CA relative to the trench under construction involving the UP’s Sunset Route.
It is still unbelievable to me, diningcar, that the natural crossover (where one track went over the other) on the abandoned line never was replaced on the 1959-1960 reroute you were involved in.
I guess the railroad’s rationale is that most trains don’t interfere with each other in changing from right running to left running in Winslow (AZ), so the natural crossover was never replace. But as the Transcon gets more and more traffic, it seems the railroad will have to deal with the interference problem. I’ve often wondered where a flyover would be put in at, and if Winslow would someday be four-tracks, biased to two in each direction.
Take care,
K.P.
Friend KP, we have discussed this 'crossover' issue before under the topic of bias running of trains and I apparently lacked the correct words to explain how I and many others see it.
Your specific concern with the 'line change' can be answered with the analysis of the high speed turnouts at Williams Jct.; East Perrin; West Perrin; East Doublea: West Doublea; East Eagle Nest; West Eagle Nest; East Crookton and West Crookton . Each of these permits crossing over from one track to the other at 40-50 MPH. This was the designed plan that now exists across the entire southern transcon. And it works where there are more than two tracks like Cajon although that is not the best example because the 'grade issue' dictates that EW trains take the track with the most favorable grade which does not paraellel the other two tracks in places.
*Not a GPS unit, rather is a robot total station, blue tooth and radio linked to a controller in the hands of the operator/rodman 1-man crew (the guy out there with a reflector prism on a pogo stick). Looks to be a Trimble Total Station (S-7 or S-9, there's Swedish orange Geodimeter technology in there somewhere!) What DC was doing in his day with 3-5 people is now being done with one or two, and a lot faster. (plus less brain damage in the office).... The total station can also measure things remotely using reflectorless light beam technology. The total station is automated fairly well, to the point it can follow you and your prism (until it falls in lust with truck mirrors, shiny bumpers or headlights with its wandering eye - BossHen has decided they're male...)
Machine Control Systems (the Spectra Precision "magic" that controls Tonka toys made by CAT/Deere/Komatsu etc) is only as good as the people operating it. Surveyors still get called-out to figure out what the cat-skinners and their in-house technicians did wrong. Slowly, the bottom feeders are getting culled from the herd and the finished product is improving.
PDN and I have seen what happens when machine grading goes wrong. and DC/PDN/MC knows what happens when the cat-skinner can't read grade stakes
(That's about $30K sitting there in the photo if you add in the controller and the reflector on the pogo stick.]
K.P., the approx. 45-deg. angle that diningcar referred to is the angle between 2 horizontal lines - a giant X - to mark the location of a critical "control" point at the intersection. Reference stake(s) were set along each of the 4 'legs' - typically I set just 1, but dc and his colleagues apparently were super-cautious and set 2. The 'cat-skinners' (bulldozer operators) would then run over and "disturb" the control point stakes (knocked, crushed, or buried, etc.). In fairness, that was usually inevitable, since they were in the active construction excavation or fill zone. But with those reference stakes set, it was then real easy to reset them. A transit on a tripod could be set on one of the reference stakes, sight another one along the same line of the X, and the control point reset by just measuring the appropriate previously recorded distance along that line from one of the reference stakes. Diningcar did it another way - set up a transit on one of the stakes of each line of the X (2 transits total), each sighting another stake along that line, and then just reset the control point wjhre the two sight lines intersect.
(The slopes from Cajon Pass may look like 45 degrees from horizontal (1-to-1 or 1:1 as I explain in a moment), but that's unlikely. Typically they're like 2 or 3 units horizontal per vertical unit - "2-to-1 2:1 or 3-to-1 3:1 respectively - which are angles from 27 deg. to 18 deg., respectively. That's likely since I understand the soils there are pretty loose and subject to disturbance and settlement from seismic activity. However, those slopes - particularly the 2:1 ones - do look more like 45 deg., especially when you have to climb them lugging a lot of heavy surveying equipment and materials . . . )
Those of us "experienced" enough to have learned and done surveying with a transit, steel tape, and plumb bob have an understanding of the accuracy, precision of the measuring process and the results thereof that some GPS users haven't had to learn and use.
- PDN.
I can agree with Paul that those soil slopes were probably closer to 2:1 or 3:1. As I remember, the angle of repose for soil was about 30% max, and lesser angles minimumizes erosion.
FYI: a 1:1 = 45 deg. slope is a 100% grade; a 2:1 = 27 deg. slope is a 50% grade (which is why it looks so steep); and a 3:1 = 18 deg. slope is a 33% grade.
Paul_D_North_JrFYI: a 1:1 = 45 deg. slope is a 100% grade; a 2:1 = 27 deg. slope is a 50% grade (which is why it looks so steep); and a 3:1 = 18 deg. slope is a 33% grade. - PDN.
And they are all steep!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
If Balt were to carefully look around the Virginia Avenue Tunnels in DC, he would see 14 of these rascals mounted high up on H-piles continuously monitoring wall movement on the length of the trench up until the day the concrete slab covers went over the top. They measured 24/7/365 on a set routine and were all cabled to a central computer in the consultants construction office. All were set to alarm at 1/8" (0.01') of movement from the previous shot at the same location. (They were their own protection, the locals thought they were security cameras- and in a way they were)
Railroad minimum standard out west is normally 2:1 slopes with 3:1 preferred (if you had the room)...1:1 slopes usually are only allowed with the Chief Engineer's permission and a favorable soils report. ...and after climbing up and down those plus walking in loose ballast, one quickly understands why field surveying is a younger person's game.
Cog railway only !
(EDIT: Referring to BaltACD's post above about steep grades)
Mountain Goat qualified, eh?
diningcar (4-12):
What you are saying HAS BEEN basically right from the inception of the Crookton line change in Arizona. But, a new situation has snuck up on us all making outdated the arrangement at Winslow, AZ.
If one looks real good at the above photo one sees the stopped tail end of a train hanging into the interlocking! That interlocking is set up so switches can be thrown while track circuits are occupied, hence, the forefront right train was able, under signal indication (red over flashing red), enter the CP to yard tracks on the right. But what if that stopped train had hung out to the signals on the photo bottom? In that case the interlocking would have been blocked.
K.P. has been noticing that on the UP and BNSF trains are getting longer and longer and longer. So, that pictured interlocking at West Winslow is becoming more and more outdated and the free flowing movement of trains greatly hindered because of it.
One way to make things more free flowing, with or without a flyover, is to lengthen the Winslow tracks, but a flyover would greatly make things more free flowing in that lengthening.
When I was at West Winslow last year it was inconclusive if the CP was just being rebuilt in kind or being expanded westward.
But, it probably was just a maintenance thing, as the railroads have their hands full with Positive Train Control issues with a looming deadline bearing down on them.
Anyway, that is how I see things. You’ve generally been right in your basic perspectives, but those perspectives are being threatened with ever increasing congestions and longer and longer trains.
Best,
Paul_D_North_Jr Cog railway only !
I've certainly enjoyed the one in MC's neck of the woods a couple of times, once when the Aspen were quite spectacular.
Paul, because of the deep cuts (60+ Feet) and high fills we could not use measured distances from RP's. Also multiple RP's were needed in some situations because the contractor was doing work outside the track structure grading, like diverting water sources to a new opening.
Since this 44 mile relocated line, in the mountains, was designed with no grades greater than 1% and no curves greater than one degree we had to build dikes and construct channels to get run off water to another opening. Can't have a creek running into a thirty foot cut.
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