GPS is a great tool, but it shouldn't replace trip planning, especially if you're operating a large commercial vehicle.
Drivers could find their way onto railroad tracks without the aid of GPS. I had one rear end, one T-bone, three head on collisions,and a couple of near misses with vehicles that were not on crossings, mostly before GPS was available.
It was not uncommon for drivers to try to use the trolley bridge and tunnel in Pittsburgh. They both had tracks but no paving.
OvermodI was a great user of AAA TripTiks, and then when I lived in Marina del Ray the Thomas Guide. The problem is that the former are really only good for the major part of a route (not short final) and the latter is only good in the coverage area. When Microsoft came out with their original plug-in laptop GPS I installed it and was overjoyed at having a moving-map display even if key features were missing from its GIS. I became an early and enthusiastic participant in wardriving as a supplement to GPS location information from those early chipsets... The best user interface/interaction design I've seen for a consumer GPS was actually the setup on Windows phones. Address comes up in numeric because humans read addresses with numbers first, and state last, whether then idiot machine parses things in that order or not. Multiple-turn guidance, no nasty little merges across five lanes of traffic, advance notes about unusual turns or landmarks. Interestingly, someone was carefully editing where the actual working entrances to gated communities and apartments and the like were located. If you wanted to pan and scroll to see where the route was going, you could do it, and a simple click recentered you on the route or at your current location. You could actually punch in an address and navigate with it. But it's amazing how many ways different companies have made this a disaster. I began to be paranoid that there was some organized behind-the-scehes conspiracy to prevent running active guidance display on a cell phone... against the law to use more than one finger, now, you know, and real bad news if you have to squint at close range to see the screen and then go back to driving. Having said that, I cannot imagine running dispatch for my wife's crews without functional GPS. Even when a certain provider can't find a given address, I can usually get Google Maps to at least figure out where it is, even if they can't read my current location. The problem is when the application demands that you pay foreground attention not just to what it's ordering you to do, but to all the ways the things it says may become clusters without warning.
The problem is that the former are really only good for the major part of a route (not short final) and the latter is only good in the coverage area. When Microsoft came out with their original plug-in laptop GPS I installed it and was overjoyed at having a moving-map display even if key features were missing from its GIS. I became an early and enthusiastic participant in wardriving as a supplement to GPS location information from those early chipsets...
The best user interface/interaction design I've seen for a consumer GPS was actually the setup on Windows phones. Address comes up in numeric because humans read addresses with numbers first, and state last, whether then idiot machine parses things in that order or not. Multiple-turn guidance, no nasty little merges across five lanes of traffic, advance notes about unusual turns or landmarks. Interestingly, someone was carefully editing where the actual working entrances to gated communities and apartments and the like were located. If you wanted to pan and scroll to see where the route was going, you could do it, and a simple click recentered you on the route or at your current location. You could actually punch in an address and navigate with it.
But it's amazing how many ways different companies have made this a disaster. I began to be paranoid that there was some organized behind-the-scehes conspiracy to prevent running active guidance display on a cell phone... against the law to use more than one finger, now, you know, and real bad news if you have to squint at close range to see the screen and then go back to driving.
Having said that, I cannot imagine running dispatch for my wife's crews without functional GPS. Even when a certain provider can't find a given address, I can usually get Google Maps to at least figure out where it is, even if they can't read my current location. The problem is when the application demands that you pay foreground attention not just to what it's ordering you to do, but to all the ways the things it says may become clusters without warning.
From about 2006 to 2012 or thereabouts, CSX installed the DeLorme Atlas program on the computers used by the Chief Dispatchers for each division. The use of the atlas program permitted answering the conundrum - civilians speak in hundred block and railroaders speak in milepost. The program that CSX installed overlaid the railroad mileposts over the otherwise civilian street maps.
When the computers were upgraded from Windows XP Network to Windows 7 Network (new computers) the DeLorme program was discontinued. CSX thought they had the answer in a GIS based application on the computers. That application was so slow and 'clunky' as to be useless when faced with the situation of defining where 'HERE' is when conversing with someone on the phone.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I was a great user of AAA TripTiks, and then when I lived in Marina del Ray the Thomas Guide.
tree68This past winter I made a trip to St Albans, VT. I checked the route ahead of time with an on-line map program, and printed it off for reference. Set up my tablet for GPS on the trip. That program routed me to a ferry crossing that wasn't running. Fortunately, I knew I had a bridge to cross, and about where it was, so headed in that general direction, figuring the GPS would finally figure it out. After miles of "take the next right turn" I reached the bridge and the GPS app did figure out where I should be. The route I should have taken involved a lot of turns on surface roads - having the GPS would have been a lot easier than trying to figure it out on the map. If the GPS app had taken me the same way. As it was, the event I was going for was cancelled due to the weather. On the way home, I eschewed the GPS as I knew most of the route I needed to cover to get home. Of course, if I'd have known the show was cancelled (which occurred before I made the trek) I wouldn't have gone at all...
Set up my tablet for GPS on the trip. That program routed me to a ferry crossing that wasn't running. Fortunately, I knew I had a bridge to cross, and about where it was, so headed in that general direction, figuring the GPS would finally figure it out. After miles of "take the next right turn" I reached the bridge and the GPS app did figure out where I should be.
The route I should have taken involved a lot of turns on surface roads - having the GPS would have been a lot easier than trying to figure it out on the map. If the GPS app had taken me the same way.
As it was, the event I was going for was cancelled due to the weather. On the way home, I eschewed the GPS as I knew most of the route I needed to cover to get home. Of course, if I'd have known the show was cancelled (which occurred before I made the trek) I wouldn't have gone at all...
Six years ago I was racing at New Jersey Motorsports Park - the racing was uneventful. After the event I loaded up the trailer and got in the tow vehicle and once the GPS unit turned on, I pushed the HOME button and the unit calculated a route. In following the route, after a while, I came to a detour for road construction. I followed the detour on a tertiary type road that ran through a semi-inhabited wooded area with woods on both sides of the road and a speed limit of 40 MPH.
I proceeded along and saw a 'BUMP' sign immediately before a double bump where the road dipped before a culvert draining between both sides of the road and second dip on the leaving side. ---__O__---.
I hit the brakes as soon as the BUMP sign came into view, but not in time and the trailer frame that was designed as ----\_____o_____ with the - being the drawbar, the \ being a frame member connected to other fram members, o is the tire placement. With the trailer impacting the YUMP because of the short coupled dip into the high point of the culvert, the trailer broke at the bottom joint of the frame.
At 7 PM on a Sunday evening, in a place where I had no idea where I was. Placed a call to AAA and they stated their contractor was tied up on the NJ Turnpike and would come as soon as possible. While waiting a local cop came by, we talked for several minutes (mostly about the race car) and he said he thought he knew somebody that could help, and went on about his rounds. About 20 minutes later a guy came down the road and said he had a mobile welder and could make the repairs for $100, told him I didn't have $100 on me and he told me of a ATM location a couple of miles away - while I went to the ATM he welded up the trailer. As the welder was completing his work, the AAA responder showed up - I thanked him for his time. I got home after a delay of about two and a half hours.
This past winter I made a trip to St Albans, VT. I checked the route ahead of time with an on-line map program, and printed it off for reference.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
CSSHEGEWISCH I've come to the conclusion that GPS is usually used in place of any advance planning by the driver. I'm a pretty good map reader so when I was driving my sons to their hockey games more than a few years ago, I would check the rink finder and plan out my route in advance.
I've come to the conclusion that GPS is usually used in place of any advance planning by the driver. I'm a pretty good map reader so when I was driving my sons to their hockey games more than a few years ago, I would check the rink finder and plan out my route in advance.
That's what I do. If I'm going to a place I'm not familiar with I'll map out the drive and directions before I go. The Google machine and road atlases are pretty handy things. That and I was well-trained in map reading to begin with.
The company-issued SmartPhones we had had a "map app" which I also used. I used the "map app" to zero in on the street address and location then used an atlas to get me in the area. I've never had or needed a GPS device.
CSSHEGEWISCHI've come to the conclusion that GPS is usually used in place of any advance planning by the driver. I'm a pretty good map reader so when I was driving my sons to their hockey games more than a few years ago, I would check the rink finder and plan out my route in advance.
I have had three different Garmin GPS units over the years. My original unit did not in any way show or identify railroad tracks. My second unit provided a visual representation of railroad tracks on the screen. My current unit does not have a visual representation of tracks but displays a warning of the approach of a railroad crossing.
For most of my travels I don't use the GPS routing functions, however, if I am trying to go to a specific address in an area that I am not totally familar with, I will plug in the address and use the route that the GPS unit identifies.
One thing about maps, if you live in a dynamic area, they don't identify the changes that happen, new roads and communities, old roads or bridges closed etc. etc. My GPS units periodically notify me of their need to be updated, once or sometimes twice a year.
Hardly new .... IMHO driver ought to have license revoked and start over.(possibly with a new driver's license restriction: NO GPS)
Beyond the GIS being bad to start with, they do require updates which most ignore (watching wife, an IT administrator, struggle with MoPar updates has been interesting)... precision OR accuracy with most civilian units will be almost automatically poor because the unit has too small and to slow a processor to handle multiple birds over four at any given time.
Within 15 feet with kinematic GPS is pretty damn good for the junk being used. (from one who regularly uses survey grade equipment that starts at $15K and goes up) ....There are thousands upon thousands of incompetant GIS/GIS users out there that have no idea of what they are doing out there. (Then you get the junk from the county GIS which is as bad or worse)
OvermodI was amused at the news workers saying the car 'immediately got stuck' when it was fairly obvious that the problem was that they tried to turn around instead of just backing up -- perhaps in panic when they looked up and saw those very bright signals.
Most modern cars don't have the ground clearance to clear the rails, so they're going to get high centered unless they are between the rails.
The Ashland cam occasionally shows someone managing to free themselves, but as often as not, a wrecker is involved.
GPS only has about 15 feet of accuracy in the first place, which is pretty significant for driving a car around.
I know it is in style to always go lol gps (which did occur in this case), but people have been doing moron things without satellite assistance for a long time. This spot not far from where I grew up (https://www.railpictures.net/photo/116168/, which is apparently the only picture of it online) was a frequent site of "it was dark and I went straight" incidents, way before anyone had their car giving them driving directions.
Ho-Ho-Kus station is on a curve, and this road is at the, as I recall, north end of it, with a sharp bend north just to the west of the crossing.
A major issue with certain kinds of GPS system, notably those built into modern full-featured cell phones, is that they suffer loss of timing accuracy with temperature. The system is usually provided as a chip or 'core', and it would cost extra to enclose this in nanoinsulation and form a 'crystal oven' to keep the timing crystal precisely in frequency. When this is not done, and the phone changes temperature, the 'fix' calculations are off... very slightly in physical electronic terms but (since we're calculating time differences in terms of the speed of light) from 30 to hundreds of feet in determined location. The key is that this is relatively unpredictable.
Now throw in what happens when idiot engineers depend on techniques like differential comparison among phones to 'correct' this, with, let's say, voice guidance programmed in the same (often artificially cheery or authoritative) tone of voice. All of us are probably familiar with being told 'turn left' followed almost immediately by 'turn right' in exactly the same tone, with the same emphasis, leading you to doubt what you just heard. You may also encounter utterly wack instructions where the phone 'assumes' you are just off a highway on local streets and goes nuts rerouting you on local streets at 70mph. (This is further complicated when the device counts down to key turns... and treats key intersections exactly the same way, so it counts down distance while displaying the direction Indication for the next turn, but only announces when you're right on top of the intersection that you're 'continuing straight. The cherry on the top of this sundae of incompetence is that, toward the end of a route, the displayed map scale may subtlety start to enlarge, so unless you are carefully watching the screen precisely when you should least have your eyes off the road, you can easily overshoot where you are.
As happens, I very nearly drove right onto the ex-L&N at a very similar turn in the dark, where a road turns abruptly west without streetlights just in the other side of the crossing. Even if you know the road, the GPS requires that you share foreground attention with it, and the results can be just as immediate as in the case in Nee Jersey.
I was amused at the news workers saying the car 'immediately got stuck' when it was fairly obvious that the problem was that they tried to turn around instead of just backing up -- perhaps in panic when they looked up and saw those very bright signals.
It's a regular event on the Virtual Railfan video collections. Ashland, VA has some streets close alongside the CSX tracks the numerous drivers have turned onto the tracks instead of the adjacent streets. Boing!
But it's been going on as long as there have been GPS's. When the voice says "turn here..." they do.
And I've heard of truck drivers driving IFR on their GPS in heavy fog...
BackshopThey now make special GPS units for truck drivers that take into account low overpasses, no commercial traffic streets, etc.
Presume those are 'extra cost' Commercial GPS units that the neophytes will say let me save money and buy the consummer version.
They now make special GPS units for truck drivers that take into account low overpasses, no commercial traffic streets, etc.
AHHH! Yes, The wonder of modern technology....GPS. Just follow the voice of whichever techno-female comes out of your 'device'... Regardless of the scene in front of your vehicle .
In my checkered past,when OTR... GPS was the newer gimic; following it, could lead on into blind streets, no truck zones, low (*you name it) bridges,tunnels,and any other sort of low hanging obstacle. One shortly became aware of what might, possibly lay in front of your potential path.... In those interveining years, GPS routing has gotten somewhat better(?).. Unfortunately, Society has not.
The old Operation Lifesaver mantra of "ANY TRACK, ANY DIRECTION, A TRAIN, ANY TIME..."
Just ask those guys in Collegedale Tn. The other day.
Another driver on the tracks!
https://dailyvoice.com/new-jersey/paramus/news/your-other-left-wrong-way-sedan-gets-stuck-on-bergen-tracks-service-delayed-nearly-an-hour/852336/
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