While exploring rail lines in Wisconsin, when I would find a track somewhere unexpected, I would look for an auto crossing with electric (gates or lights), so I could get the railroad name, the FRA crossing number, the subdivison name,and the milepost number off of the silver relay box. Lately however, I have noticed that the if the tracks belong to the UP, the milepost numbers and sometimes even the subdivion name have been painted over; the railroad name and the FRA number is untouched, but for some reason the other info is being removed. I have not noticed this happening on any of the other rail lines in WI (CN, CP, WS).
Anybody have a guess as to why? And is this being done elsewhere?
Jim, this is a UP thing. The lame excuse I heard is that the milepost numbers on the crossings were not always accurate, and that there had been an instance of a work crew using the crossing milepost instead of a real one to determine protection limits, and were not protected. So, asks I, why not just paint the right ones on the signal boxes? I suppose the crossings are as easy to look up by numbers entered into a database.
I had occasion to call the 800 number on the controlbox at a U.P. crossing (in Cedar Rapids, Iowa) a few weeks ago (because the gates were bouncing up and down for no reason) and in identifying the crossing I commented that the milepost number had been removed and the person that answered the phone said they all were being removed, but offered no explanation.
That’s about what we heard, at least for one reason, too. That a signal maintainer or track inspector gave up his old track authority because he thought he was within the limits of the new one.
I suppose the next thing (using that logic) would be to remove the number plates from the block signals. They’re related to mile post location but most aren’t exact.
Those mile post markings are very helpful when you’re trying to pick out which crossing has the stop and protect order on it. Especially when it’s one of two or three crossings between the mile, quarter,half mile, and 3/4 posts.
Oh, wait a minute… something easier for the crews? Can’t have that! Especially when blowing a crossing protection order is treated as a main track authorization violation.
Have not seen this issue on this end of Uncle Pete’s road, but will keep an eye out for it… I will offer this though:
There are a large number of people that seem to think that all railroad miles are 5280 feet. They aren’t… Since day 1, there are things like line changes, math errors and mileposts in the field not matching the mapping that is supposed to be the official record. Mix in signs moving every time they get knocked down and signs on poles that were never exact either and you have chaos. The fact that the individual state DOTs maintain the federal DOT Number system records instead of the railroads and you have bedlam. (I am aware that Illinois does some wierd things with its record keeping and Colorado & Iowa’s recordkeeping is horrendous)…If you look at histories of some crossings DOT # records tha go back to somewhere between 1974 and 1980, you will see odd things happen…especially after railroad input went away after 1983 after the initial setup of the system.
On the railroad I worked for, official location when converted from Milepost plus feet to decimal milepost, the number to be posted was calculated as distance in feet from the map location of the lower milepost divided by the map distance of the two adjoining mileposts, not 5280 feet. I have seen miles as short as 540 feet and as long as 9000+ feet. ATSF looked at posting all milepost locations to milepost tenths of a mile, hundreths when there were more than one crossing inside those tenths of a mile. Get people clicking off milepost locations using the odometers of their hi-rails (now with 19" rims instead of the15-17" rims that are original equipment) and people counting poles per mile and things get wierd.
Then again, simpletons think all miles are 5280.00 feet, right?
Most of our mile posts are pretty close. There are a few extremes. That’s carried over to the placement of the quarter and half posts. The quarter mile sections are shorter or longer than an actual quarter mile. I know of only one measured mile that is so marked. It used to be a two mile section, but one end was messed up by the addition of a control point.
I’m not sure the actual distance in the field matters operationally. If my authority to occupy the main track reads between MP 236 and MP 237 I can’t go outside of those limits. The two mile posts are the end of the limits. The distance between the two may be 3800 feet or 5800 feet, but the mile posts are the end of limits. Not 5280 feet west of MP 236.
When MOW puts up boards for protecting temporary speed restrictions or Form B work areas, they don’t always measure out 10560 feet, but put them 2 miles as coresponds to the existing mile posts. One exception is at points of miliage equations, for example where MP 82.5 = MP 86. In those cases they measure out the required distance.
(MP 236 to MP237 is an actual short mile. Was in the neighborhood of 3800 feet between the posts due to a line change many, many years ago. Recently they relocated MP 236 across a county road when a control point was added. Still it’s far short of an actual mile to MP 237.)
“Upon this point, a page of history is worth a volume of logic.” - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No one has above has mentioned whether the name of the road is also on the box or sign, or not. Around here they usually are, and that would be another data point of reference.
I’d be reluctant to make the ‘system’ dependent on someone having to look up the associated MilePost - even electronically - every time they wanted to reference a grade crossing to that; it just seems like too much of a waste of time to have to do that over and over again, let alone compiling it and keeping it up to date.
Why not just assign an approximate or sequential MP to such locations, and designate or ‘code’ it as such by adding the prefix or suffix of “A” to indicate that it is approximate, such as “MP A123.45” for closely-spaced grade crossings ? Or, in BaltACD’s example of a long mile above, an intermediate point could still be called “MP A7.5” ? Then everybody knows not to rely on it for exact distances. Us surveyor types already know not to trust such representations of data without first confirming their accuracy (ever wonder where the phrase “Trust - but verify !” came from ?), so we’re not likely to be fooled. (That’s why we have practices that are confusing to outsiders - but essential to us keeping records in order - as “equalization stations” and the like.)
The purpose and goal is to be able to have a consistent name for the location to reference it by, not that the name needs to be an actual distance - it may as well be called “Banana” (oh, wait - Alfred Kahn already used that concept for inflation back during the Carter presidency . . . [:-^] ). See that quote from Humpty Dumpty about "words meaning what he says they mean -
On my carrier, Road Crossings are referenced in the Engineering Database by their DOT Number as well as their Milepost location to the 100th of a mile.
For Train Dispatching purposes, when necessary to issue a Stop & Flag or similar restriction about the crossing, it is referenced by it’s common street name and Milepost to the 10th of a mile.
Road Crossings are not referenced for train or on track equipment purposes for limits of operation. Operational limits are published as either Milepost or Control Point. The only time a Road Crossing would be referenced in Operational limits except when a authority must specify at initial occupancy location for a track car authority and that Road Crossing must be within the overall limits that the authority is being issued for. In the issuance of Operational Authorities, the Computer Aided Dispatching System will only recognize Milepost and Control Point identifications.
So for a “Stop & Flag” order, it would be the “31st St. SW grade crossing at MP 31.9” ?
And for “Operational Authority” for a hi-rail Track Inspector who is 'putting on" at that crossing and traveling in the direction of decreasing MP’s to another crossing at - say, MP 25.4, it could be something like “Occupy Main Track 2 [normally westward] from MP 32 to MP 25, Initial Occupancy at MP 31.9” ?
And thanks to all for the detailed explanations and comments above. [tup] v
“Upon this point, a page of history is worth a volume of logic.” - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No one has above has mentioned whether the name of the road is also on the box or sign, or not. Around here they usually are, and that would be another data point of reference.
I’d be reluctant to make the ‘system’ dependent on someone having to look up the associated MilePost - even electronically - every time they wanted to reference a grade crossing to that; it just seems like too much of a waste of time to have to do that over and over again, let alone compiling it and keeping it up to date.
Why not just assign an approximate or sequential MP to such locations, and designate or ‘code’ it as such by adding the prefix or suffix of “A” to indicate that it is approximate, such as “MP A123.45” for closely-spaced grade crossings ? Or, in BaltACD’s example of a long mile above, an intermediate point could still be called “MP A7.5” ? Then everybody knows not to rely on it for exact distances. Us surveyor types already know not to trust such representations of data without first confirming their accuracy (ever wonder where the phrase “Trust - but verify !” came from ?), so we’re not likely to be fooled. (That’s why we have practices that are confusing to outsiders - but essential to us keeping records in order - as “equalization stations” and the like.)
The purpose and goal is to be able to have a consistent name for the location to reference it by, not that the name needs to be an actual distance - it may as well be called “Banana” (oh, wait - Alfred Kahn already used that concept for inflation back during the Carter presidency . . .
I strongly suspect UP’s reason for removing the milepost numbers has to do with its emergency response system. Like other large railroads’ systems, it has a lot of automated bells and whistles designed to minimize the time needed to respond to a reported problem, but these all depend on the ability to quickly identify the precise location of the problem.
If someone calls the UP emergency number and reports a grade crossing issue by milepost, the person receiving the call (in Omaha) has to determine the location of the crossing before he/she can do anything about it. Remember that mileposts on a large railroad are not unique - they designate locations on a subdivision, and UP (like other major RR’s) has lots of subdivisions. That means that a milepost location, without more, can refer to many locations on the railroad in different states. In fact, there probably are many grade crossings on the UP system which have the same or close milepost designations. In order to determine an exact location of a problem reported by milepost, the UP responder will have to query the person giving the report for further information (like the state and town in which the crossing is located, and possibly the name of the road) - which delays a response. Only when that additional information is obtained can the UP responder determine the location and take responsive action. The DOT crossing number, on the other hand, is unique, and allows the location of the crossing to be immediately displayed on a computer screen, and responsive action to be taken without further ado. UP’s thinking is probaby that taking the milepost numbers off the UP emergency response signs makes it more likely that a person reporting a crossing problem will use the DOT crossing number, rather than using less helpful information.
Interestingly, FRA recently (3-4-2011) proposed new emergency notification rules for gra
While I can’t speak to what the UP has done, Every Subdivision on my carrier has a Prefix to the numeric portion of the Milepost. This form of identification was required when the CADS System was implemented 20+ years ago, since UP also implemented a CADS system in the same time frame, I suspect the have a similar type identification system. Between the Prefix and the numeric portion of the Milepost ALL milepost locations on the system are unique, as Milepost BAA 3.2 is totally unique from Milepost AK 3.2, etc. The biggest problem is where different subdivisions run parallel to each other through a location…each subdivision has it’s own unique DOT identification for the road crossing; if the different subdivisions are assigned to different operating Divisions it can get real dicey when it comes to outsiders reporting trouble PROPERLY…more than one vehicle has been destroyed when the crossing was reported as being the one it wasn’t.
The Class I carriers have been using the signage the FRA recently proposed for Short Lines for a decade or more.
[quote user=“Falcon48”]
I strongly suspect UP’s reason for removing the milepost numbers has to do with its emergency response system. Like other large railroads’ systems, it has a lot of automated bells and whistles designed to minimize the time needed to respond to a reported problem, but these all depend on the ability to quickly identify the precise location of the problem.
If someone calls the UP emergency number and reports a grade crossing issue by milepost, the person receiving the call (in Omaha) has to determine the location of the crossing before he/she can do anything about it. Remember that mileposts on a large railroad are not unique - they designate locations on a subdivision, and UP (like other major RR’s) has lots of subdivisions. That means that
I have seen alpha prefixes for milepost locations on some railroads. To my knowledge, UP does not use such a system. I know for a fact that the milepost information UP recently removed on its crossing equipment huts in my area (a Chicago suburb) did not have alpha prefixes. In other words, if you reported a crossing malfunction at “MP 16” to UP’'s emergency number without giving more information, it could refer to any subdivision on the UP network that had a milepost 16. In this case,the responder (in Omaha) would have to query the you for additional information to enable the specific crossing to be identified (state, community, possibly the road name). Only after the crossing is identifed can responsive action be implemented.
I’d have to check to make sure (and, since it’s midnight, I’m not about to do that right now), but I don’t think the signs on the UP crossing equipment huts had the subdivision name. As I recall, they had (i) the railroad name, (ii) the name of the road, (iii) the milepost, and (iv) the DOT crossing number.
cOULD IT BE BY USING AN UNIQUE dot number if Jpe Blow calls CSX with a dot number they cn say “oh that is actually NS”? Plus can call DOT directly and DOT has all the information???