I can’t help but laugh - on the map on page 45 of the September issue of Trains, Trenton and Phillipsburg have been moved to Pennsylvania. I guess the Delaware shifted position when I wasn’t looking.
Steve Troy
Well, Jersey Shore is in Pennsylvania.
Trenton makes, Pennsylvania takes!
Me too, Steve: Seems that TRAINS may have hired some of the Rand McNally Map making dudes! [(-D][swg][(-D] It used to be an inside joke among the Truck Driving Community…Each new edition brought about situations that effected our mileage pay {which generally was based on the R-M Household Movers Guides}… Each year Dallas, or Memphis crawled closer, and closer together ! [:-^]
[Bear in mind the ‘points’ from which those mileages were based were supposedly, fixed- Brass Placks, mounted in stone or concrete, as the specific point from which the measurements were taken; ( they could generally be placed at a point in vicinity of the Main Post office in each community) ]
I am sure some of our Surveyor/Engineer types, like Mudchicken or Paul North could come up with logical explanations as to how and why, suppposedly fixed points could ‘move’. Seasonal shrinkage of the road way??? [:^) [banghead]
Sam, I believe that you are referring to benchmarks–which give the location and altitude fairly precisely. The only reason I can think of for moving one–which will render it void–is if the location is extremely disturbed, as in the destruction of the building (if it is on one). There is one at the front of the former UP station here. It seems to me that the first one I ever saw was at my grammar school.
MC can fill us in on more particulars.
Benchmarks aren’t necessarily reference points for mileage between points - they’re more a fixed point in three dimensions (lat, lon, and elevation). And a fair sized town might have several.
I think they usually use “downtown” for point-to-point measurements, but even that can be questionable.
Is the zero mile post still at the White House in Washington? I wonder how often it is referred to in determining distances from point to point.
The distance from the depot in my home town to the depot in the next town was 6.6 miles (ETT); the highway sign indicated that it was 7 miles.
Steve, it was that last big flood which shifted the river channel . . . [:-^] Beside, George Washington was said to favor Bucks Co., PA over NJ.
Zug: “Trenton Makes - The World Takes”: (collective civic inferiority complex ??)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Trenton_Bridge
- Paul North.
When this Ohio boy saw the “Trenton Makes” sign for the first time (c.1970), I was more than impressed; in fact I think I had goosebumps!
It struck me then that Trenton must be a proud manufacturing city (as well as state capital), proud of her citizens and their products. The massive sign implies that Trenton makes a bunch of different stuff, not just one major product (e.g. the steel city) and is important in the world’s economy.
I like that sign, especially at night, and I’m glad it’s still there even though I’m sure it costs a lot to keep in good condition.
I used to drive between two small towns. Two lane county highway. Going west the signage declared it was 4 miles to the other town, but going east the signage declared it was 3 miles back to the 1st town.
Books have been written about survey points moving and related phenomena - so consider just briefly:
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Tectonic plate movement (San Andreas Fault) moves the points both horizontally and vertically a measureable amount each year. So do lots of other large-scale forces - magma displacement under volcanoes, glaciers melting, etc.
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Robert A. LeMassena’s wonderful essay “Numbers” from the 1980’s. What’s the elevation of a mountain pass: What the highway dept. sign says, what the USGS monument says, what the RR profile says, etc. ? Can they all be correct, even with different numerical values ? And to what tolerance/ precision ? (“USGS good to a filecard’s thickness”) Good intro to understanding the difference between accuracy and precision.
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And his critique of E. M. Frimbo’s lifetime mileage - something like X,XXX,XXX.52 miles. Really ? That last digit implies accuracy of 0.01 mile, ~53 ft. Did Frimbo keep track of which end of the train where he got on/ off, let alone which end of the Pullman or coach ?
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Paul North.
Can’t recall where I saw it, but recently read an article about Australia having to do some serious recalculation because the continent has moved and nothing is in it’s correct position according to GPS.
And thus we have further proof of plate tectonics.
I read an article about the same topic on BBC News website sometime last week. The whole continent is moving northward at about one meter per year.
Might make for some interesting discussions about where you built that fence…
On the other hand, it points up the need for physical landmarks from which everything else can be measured. The entire continent may be moving, but I’m assuming that things on the continent aren’t moving with relation to each other.
Could be interesting when it comes to lining up your auto GPS with the map overlay.
Simple explaination: Our NJ governor Christie is out of state so much that we don’t need a state capital anymore. We sold it off.
If a benchmark is moved by the action of an earthquake, is a new survey made to establish a new benchmark and the old one taken out?
Are meridians and bases re-established after an earthquake disturbs the surface?
CARTER LAKE – The area we know as Carter Lake was once called Cut-Off Island – a fitting name for a place torn between two cities and two states, yet connected to neither.
Iowa and Nebraska constantly battled for the city bordered by the new oxbow lake after the Missouri River changed its course in 1877. But to the stranded community on the west side of the river, neither Council Bluffs nor Omaha wanted Carter Lake for anything more than its tax revenue…
“It was really a no-man’s land: Dogfighting, cockfighting, boxing matches,” Roenfeld said. “Some unsavory things went on there.”
What began with one man’s idea of building a floating bar in the lake to flout laws of both states eventually grew into a border town rife with vice: From alcohol, especially after Iowa repealed Prohibition before its western neighbor, to gambling of all sorts…
Does Pennsylvania offer lower taxes and more lenient liquor laws?