I do appreciate what you are saying, Henry, and agree as to basic or foundational records.
And, I often wonder how much common practical operating information is primarily “in someone’s head”. It appears that sometimes, “common knowledge” may not get written down, or may get lost over time (even if it is only mis-filed, or accidentally thrown out during a move or reorganization), because at the time the information is important, no one refers to the documents – they know the information. Or as changes get made, they are not documented or poorly documented (the architect’s plans are there, but the changes made in the field during construction don’t get into the documents).
How many times, on this or the “Classic Trains” forum (or even at a museum or reference library!), does someone ask a question about an historical item, or diagram, or photograph, the answer to which must have been common knowlege at the time, but now no one knows what it was used for, or how it was used.
How many times do construction crews run into unexpected infrastructure (abandoned foundations, pipes, etc.), because they are no longer shown on the public records? Heck, here in Northern California, a major utility recently suffered a catastrophic failure of an active natural gas transmission line. Turns out the current records indicated that it was a seamless pipe which had been appropriately inspected. The reality was that it was a welded-seam pipe. It is taking them many months to provide requested records to the state PUC. Yes, there are records, but both their accuracy and accessibilty is quite questionable. And that is for a currently-active, highly-regulated operation!
No, Henry, I suspect you put too much trust in the “system”.
Museums and their volunteers are far different than the railroad president, trainmaster, roadmaster, design engineer, locomotive engineer,conductor, traffic agent or anybody else on the railraod. Railroaders need to know, so do. Outsiders have no reason to know so it is no big deal not telling them. That being said, my point about the railfan’s challenge or job, or interest is the poiint: that if he wants to know for railfan sake, then he has to do the digging and putting pieces together and find joy in doing it. In effect, it is none of his business and there is no legal reason he has to know any of that material except maybe the grade crossing designation when 911’ing an accident. A good one today is who owns the track? For instance: in BIngahtmon,NY you can see a BNSF or UP locomotive leaving cars off for the NYS&W from a CP train operated for and my NS. Unless your a fan, who’s to care as long as the NYSW knows NS is delivering the CP cars at noon today? Frito Lay only want to know where the potatos and corn oil is. ANd that’s no body’s business but between FL and the Central NY Railroad at this point! At the same spot and with the same cut of cars: former DL&W track, SB&NY, Erie, Delaware and Hudson, EL, CR plus new NYSW track connecting to the Central New York RY track. Again, only the tax collector really have to know which is which and belongs to whom. A railfan doesn’t have to know no matter how much he wants to know; thus the fun challange of being a railfan.
I agree, Henry (though there are stories about tax collectors making mistakes … that would be for a different forum!!). The thrill of discovery, in an subject one loves …
That’s the problem, of course. But we shouldn’t say they’re poorly documented-- they’re just not documented well enough so people can look at the documents fifty years down the road and make sense of them. Such perfect documentation would be a lot of work-- work that nobody gets paid to do.
Like many others, henry6 imagines that somewhere, in some distant kingdom that mere mortals could never aspire to visit, the keepers of the flame have The Truth preserved on parchment scrolls. (How did The Truth get onto the scrolls, you ask? How did the Ten Commandments get onto the stone tablets?)
Unfortunately, when we need info to print an employee timetable or a track chart, we can’t very well ask the high priests to dig out the proper scroll. They’re above such mundane pursuits. So the timetables and track charts that people actually carry around are always incomplete and often wrong here and there.
In PRR days Newark was 10.0 miles from NY Penn. The 2010 employee timetable shows 9.9 miles, which could be right for all we know-- but the 1978 timetable shows 10.5, which sure isn’t right. Somebody took a wrong turn on his trek to the distant kingdom. The PRR called NY-Trenton 58.1 miles, which I suspect is correct; the 2010 timetable says 57.8.
Dragoman:
as changes get made, they are not documented or poorly documented
Like many others, henry6 imagines that somewhere, in some distant kingdom that mere mortals could never aspire to visit, the keepers of the flame have The Truth preserved on parchment scrolls. (How did The Truth get onto the scrolls, you ask? How did the Ten Commandments get onto the stone tablets?)
I am trying to figure out what the %$$*^ you mean by that statement. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t apply to anything I said.“The truth” you talk about is not some mystical or empherical thought but hard facts and figures and is a lot easier to prove how it got there than by hypothetical theories of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ten Commandments. You are way off base here and makes me suspect of you.
Unfortunately, when we need info to print an employee timetable or a track chart, we can’t very well ask the high priests to dig out the proper scroll. They’re above such mundane pursuits. So the timetables and track charts that people actually carry around are always incomplete and often wrong here and there.
The “we” who need to print a new employee timetable is not you and me but the employees charged with the job, have the information at thier disposal. Railroads print charts, diagrams, timetables, schedules, rules, special rules, etc. on a regular basis. In addition changes and updated information are published and given to employees who need to know weekly, more often in emergencies. Each employee is charged with being familiar with all information about the&nbs
If you look at the 1978 employee timetable you’ll see 9.0 + 1.5 miles between NY Penn and Newark; look at the 2010 timetable you’ll see 8.8 + 1.1 miles.
I was just surfing through threads and noticed this one seems active. I can’t quite understand the controversy, however. Seems like it would be easy enough to verify the accuracy of ETT’s and TT’s, one way or t’other.
Sclimm, it is a question of whether or not anything exists that guides railroad. ETT’s, track diagrams, AAR accounting of grade crossings, property maps, books of rules, whatever has to be known by the employees to operate the railroad.
But timz, your quote above means nothing…I don’t care. I don’t have to care. An engineer reading a train order, a conductor having to know his location, a signalman or trackman haveing to do maintenance, a train dispatcher or operator handling traffic, and others have to care and know. They not only have read thier timetables; books of rules; schedules; daily, weekly and monthly bullitens and whatever else is pertaining to their jobs. If the reason the change was made is important to them, it is in that paper work. As a railfan, I don’t have to know that. But you know what? As a railfan, I would like to know that as a matter of reference, of trivia and minutea, of interest because I am a railfan intererested in the PRR and AMtrak and New Jersey. But the world isn’t going to cave in if I don’t learn it. And I don’t believe there is a conspiracy of some kind trying to keep the information from me. It is just that in the great scheme of things, it shouldn’t matter to me.
What you’ve got to accept, tmz, is that all that knowledge is assembled, transmitted and commuted to those who have to know, and i
Easier now than it used to be, now that we can measure distances on Google Maps. (Hard to believe how good a job Google does.) But aside from that, how would you find out if NY Penn to Newark is 9.9 or 10.5 miles-- i.e. whether the 1978 or 2010 ETT is right?
Walk from NYP to Newark Penn with a pedometer. Or read books or the internet postings that give you the answer. OR if it is so important why not write AMtrak or NJTransit and ask them.
Walk from NYP to Newark Penn with a pedometer. Or read books or the internet postings that give you the answer. OR if it is so important why not write AMtrak or NJTransit and ask them.
Can you get permission to walk through the NEC Hudson River Tunnels? Also, where along which platform at Penn Station is zero?
I have an explanation for the latest change.
Possibly the New York Connecting railroad, the line to the Hell Gate Bridge and to New Rochelle, used a different starting point in the Penn Station complex than did the PRR, and the LIRR may have used a third. Possiblyi the latest change was to get all these starting points together.
Similarly the Trenton point may be have been a division between SEPTA and NJT although Amtrak is the owner, or possibly a matter of maintenance responsibilities.
If anyone is rabid enough to want to do it, Dave, they have my permission. But I don’t know them.
Incidently, checking the NJT track diagram books from 2005 and 2011 both show Hudson to be 8.3 miles from Penn Sta and 7.2 miles from Jersey City. Differences in the employee timetables, therefore, is the definition of the designated “location” for block operating purposes. In other words the rairoad hasn’t changed but the designated point has been moved or renamed on paper at least… It could be that the original designation was at the beginning of the interlocking limit or at the first switch westbound and now the designation is at a marker in the middle of the interlocking. Dock remains at 8.5.
That one we could hope to find on paper somewhere. I’m guessing it was the centerline of the pre-1963 waiting room (not the concourse). No reason NY Conn would use anything different; LIRR probably didn’t have any milepost at NY Penn.
6.2 miles from Jersey City, you mean-- Jersey City was MP 1.0. But yes, that’s part of their error-- any given point west of Hudson is about 2.35 miles (not 2.1 miles) closer to Jersey City than it is to NY Penn.
If you go to NYP there is a MP0 somewhere at the west end of the platforms…it is designated somewhere in the ETT’s and on the diagrams but I’m not home to look. And, timz, NO I MEANT 7.2 BECAUSE, AS I SAID IN MY POST, THAT IS WHAT BOTH DIAGRAMS READ: 7.2 or 8.3 AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INTERLOCKING LIMITS. And if they are in error, you better tell them because they evidently aren’t operating right since they are operating with the wrong information. Actually the 1.O at JC was for the ferry ride and it was never changed in tribute to the PRR or, as I have pointed out, it would mean changing a lot of numbers, mile posts, signal and switch numbers all the way to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh depending on which line you are running on. The complications of changing all those things are so confusing and entangled that is not worth bothering doing anything with it but leave it as it is. But why does it bother you so much?
I stand corrected about MP 0 at NYP. It is not west of the platforms but is at the exact mid point of the platforms! with interlockings at each end marked as being at MP 0.1.
You must be referring to the platform between tracks 11-12? It was extended around 1930, so if MP 0 was originally at that platform’s midpoint (which it wasn’t) it wouldn’t be at the midpoint now.
The line goes straight down the mid point of all the platforms, the mid point of the “station”, the mid point of the page so that all tracks are at zero paralleled east and west.
There is no such straight line, of course. Best guess for Milepost Zero is a point 20 feet (plus or minus maybe 10? feet) west of a point midway between 7th and 8th Ave; that may have been the center of the waiting room.
My grade school art teacher told me I couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler. I didn’t draw this line. It is on the diagram. It is a straight line down the middle of the diagram and the first interlocking east and west of the line is marked 0.1. It is the point zero from which all other calculations are made. It is not my doing. No, you won’t see it marked on the platform. But it exists for technical purposes.