As you cross from West to East on a state hiway the Mileposts get larger as you go East where as a Railroad going West the East the Mileposts get larger as you go West. Why is this? Allan.
The answer is fairly simple: Most US railroads were built from east to west. Track laying started in the east at mile post 0.0 and proceeded westward with increasing mile post numbers.
East-West roads that were not built from east to west were laid out on paper as though they were (for the sake of tradition or simplicity??).
Chuck
Actually, on railroads, they don’t.
Each railroad decided if it was an east/west or north south road, for convenience sake, to give crews and dispatchers a direction to use.
It has no real correlation with geographic north/south or east/west…but towards or away from a subdivisions home terminal.
Each division has a home terminal, and if you are heading away from it, no matter what geographic direction you go, you must have a uniform direction to use.
Take Englewood yard in Houston, former SP home terminal.
It actually is pointed east and west.
Any train headed away from Englewood east, regardless of it true geographic heading, is headed east, even if it is really going north…any train going west away from the terminal is headed west.
The Palestine subdivision runs North West from Englewood, but any train going away from Englewood on it is headed west, any train headed into Englewood on it is headed east.
To give an example, by using the Houston Terminal District.
Westward Station Eastward
(read down) Name (read up)
Station# Mile Post
36550 Dawes 353.0
… Mesa crossover 355.2
35020 Tower 87(HBT Xing) 356.8
35000 Englewood Yard 357.4
35045 Tower 68 358.4
35200 Houston Ramp 358.8
35260 Tower 26(HBTXing) 360.5
… Tower 108 (UPXing) 0.8
35055 Houston 1.4
35305 Chaney Junction 2.8
35310 Eureka 5.4
34260 Bellaire Jct. 6.2
34250 West Jct. 12.6
So, if your headed from West junction towards Englewood, the mile post get smaller, even though your headed geographic north, till you get to the center of Englewood, at tower 108,(which is just on the east end on the yard).
If you continue to
The former P&LE (now the Pittsburgh Division of CSX). The depot at Pittsburgh as their Zero mile post, Going West from Pittsburgh the miles increased as you proceeded to New Castle and Youngstown. Goine East from Pittsbugh the miles increased as you proceeded to Connellsville. CSX has continued those conventions. Pittsburgh is both milepost PLE 0 and PLY 0. New Castle on the Pittssburgh is roughly PLE 33. McKeesport is roughly PLY 20.
they used a differnt 3rd letter to singify a subdivistion… the PLE is for Eire…the Y in PLY is for the youghagany (sp) since the majorty of that sup went along the yough river to connellsville…and the the mon sub…is PLM…for monongahala river that the mon sub runs along side…and the mile marker 0.0 on the PLE and PLY siginfies the “start” of the railroad… at mile marker 0.0 is where the PLE headquarters use to be…as well the dispatching center… if you go down any of the PLE subs you will find that hey are all marked as pittsburgh being ground zero… when you get to mckesport…where the mon sub starts…the mon sub starts with mile marker PLM15.2 i think it is…which on the PLY is also PLY 15.2…eveything on the PLE was marked as its disstance in rail miles from pittsburgh…aka PLE/PLY 0.0 .oh yea…i almost forgot… the ohio river sub… ( at monica and ends in shippinsport was lettered PLO for the ohio river sub…and its mile makers started at what ever mile marker that branch came off the PLE sub…
csx engineer
As others have mentioned, there is no real system for railroad mileposts. They start at a point significant to the line, and head off in a chosen direction.
The interstate highway system was designed from a master plan from its inception. It was originally intended for military as well as civilian use, when proposed by the Eisenhower administration. If you look at a national map of the interstate system, you will notice that the north / south routes are odd numbers starting with lowest in the west. East / west routes are even numbers with the lowest numbers in the south. The mileposts actually follow this pattern within each state. There is a certain military logic and uniformity to this, though many civilians may not see or even notice it.
US highways, state and county roads have their own numbering systems, that may or may not follow a pattern as logical as the interstate system. In most cases these roads were not created from a master plan. They just tend to happen as the need arrises.
The reason highway milemarkers run up travelling north and east is from surveying. When converting the real-world onto paper a location is given coordinates measured from some imaginary location 0north,0east. Any point can be destribed as so many feet north and so many feet east of that zero point. Also while building roads, sewers, or railroads, there is an imaginary line that is usually the proposed centerline. Objects can be located in relationship to this line also. Station 10+15.2/15Lt would be the point that is 1015.2 along that imaginary line, then 15 ft to the left measured 90 degrees from that point. Because surveying follows the northing, easting convention it made sense to make the stationing and mileposts follow it also. (and it was easier to calculate)
What?[%-)][%-)][%-)]
No railroad here thought to do it that way. The next thing you will feel is umpteen generations of railroad surveyors rolling over in their respective graves. As for me, I’m on the floor laughing my not-too-small butt off![(-D][(-D][(-D]…and BNSFRailfan, The milepost numbers west of you drop to zero (o) somewhere around stinken lincoln and start over again.
The question was refering to highway mileage posts, and that is what I unsuccessfully tried to explain.
Instead of laughing, why don’t you explain/answer the question.
There have been several mentions of the fact that the railroad decided which direction their mileposts increased or decreased.
It might also be of interest to this discussion the fact that the Southern Pacific had two directions on it’s lines no matter what the geographic direction was. A train headed toward San Francisco was westbound and a train heading away was eastbound.
One thing that can get really confusing on RR mileposts is when a portion of a line has been abandoned but the mileposts remain where they were. Thus even though the tracks don’t go to Podunk any more, the mileposts still show the miles from Podunk…
(1) The question has been well answered. *(railroad discretion rule)
(2) As for the highway question, a young Army officer in 1919-1920 wrote a series of reports that started the US down the path of national system of roads and the basics of administering them…a Lt. Col. Eisenhower. Most of his suggestions followed into what is now FHWA.