GE Distant Measuring Devises

[Anonymous]

How did you do these things before counters?

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by eastside

Why don’t the RRs put a GPS into every FRED? That way you’d know exactly the length of your train (locos GPS coordinates - FRED’s coordinates) and could figure indirectly that you are past the switch. Alternatively, the coordinates of the switch are known. That would tell you directly whether the end of train is past the switch.

You don’t knw much about GPS and FRED’s have a rough life.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainjunky29

How did you do these things before counters?

Count poles.

[eastside]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

QUOTE: Originally posted by eastside

Why don’t the RRs put a GPS into every FRED? That way you’d know exactly the length of your train (locos GPS coordinates - FRED’s coordinates) and could figure indirectly that you are past the switch. Alternatively, the coordinates of the switch are known. That would tell you directly whether the end of train is past the switch.

You don’t knw much about GPS and FRED’s have a rough life.

Saying that I’m ignorant is not a explanation for not using GPS. As I understand it, FRED’s already send telemetric data. GPS is pretty much on a single chip.

[Rodney_Beck]

They had the waycar with 2 people on it to let the head end know when the train was in the clear or on the other main track after crossing over.

Rodney

[ValleyX]

Not always, Rodney, there were many years that the rear end crew had no radio. They just knew it was so many carlengths to that crossing or that farmhouse or that switch or that big rock. And, like mudchicken said, they counted lineside poles, a pole for every two carlengths. Hard to do today, lineside poles are gone from most locations, seems like.

I recently learned that the ATSF put a white pole every thousand feet for the first ten thousand feet out of all of their yards, a good idea, I thought.