Mileage Markers

[denmarks]

It would be nice if there were some type of mileage marker along train routes that could be matched up with station mileage to figure out where the train was upon waking in the morning.

 

[greatcats]

Use Google maps

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[brianpmcdonnell17]

There are mile markers, so if you are familiar enough with the route to know the marker at the stations you could tell where you are. Usually mile marker 0 is at the city where the predecessor

railroad was headquartered. For example, the CSX mile markers on the Florida trains are based out of Richmond, VA, as that was where the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line interchanged with the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac for service to Washington and beyond via the Pennsylvania Railroad. If you don't know the mile marker locations, you could also use a mobile device to determine your location.

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[Lonestar648]

I take my GPS unit with the window suction cup and the AC adapter. This way I always know where I am and how fast we are traveling.

 

[denmarks]

There are mile markers, so if you are familiar enough with the route to know the marker at the stations you could tell where you are. Usually mile marker 0 is at the city where the predecessor

railroad was headquartered. For example, the CSX mile markers on the Florida trains are based out of Richmond, VA, as that was where the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line interchanged with the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac for service to Washington and beyond via the Pennsylvania Railroad. If you don't know the mile marker locations, you could also use a mobile device to determine your location.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app

That would only work if there was a table that showed the miles at every station. For example if I wake up and look out the window and see a marker indicating 1234 that would be meaningless without the miles for each station.

 

[stappend]

The trains with WIFI will show you on a map where you are when you go to the WIFI page.

 

[niemi24s]

The Milepost miles can be correlated to the Mileages given in the trains timetable. The FRA Safety Map... https://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/ ...shows the mileposts and has symbols for each of the stations. For instance, the downtown Milwaukee station is shown at about Milepost 85.4 and the EB timetable says 85 for good agreement. But about 575 miles farther on down the line at Fargo, the Milepost is about 23.3 because it's in a different subdivision.

Making all those correlations is probably something you'd want to do at home before the trip.

 

[KmH]

With minimal exceptions, outside the northeast Corridor Amtrak does not own the tracks and has no say regarding the mile markers.

As noted above railroad mile markers often reset at the beginning/end of a sub division or when track ownership changes.

Use the FRA map for mile markers and OpenRailwayMap.com for subdivisions.

Westbound from Chicago the Southwest Chief and the California Zephyr are on the BSNF Chicago sub to just past MM 41 (SW Aurora, IL) where the Mendota sub starts, but the mm don't change and the first/last Mendota sub mm is mm 41.

The Mendota sub ends/begins between mm 162/163 just before the Galesburg station (Mulberry St. grade crossing) which is at the start/end of the BNSF Ottumwa sub. Again the MM don't change with the change of sub.

However, a couple of miles past Galesburg the CZ and the SWC take different routes.

The CZ stays on the Ottumwa sub but at mm 170 the SWC uses the Cameron Connector for 1 mile to move to the Chillicothe Sub and joins there at that sub's mm 185.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.894927,-90.4894354,1726m/data=!3m1!1e3

That causes a 14 mile discrepancy for the SWC while the CZ mm just keep incrementing because it didn't change subdivisions.

The next SWC station is Ft. Madison, IA and Amtrak shows that station 220 miles into the SWC route but the station is between mm 234/235

The CZ station at Ottumwa is close to mm 280 and Amtrak's mileage has Ottumwa 279 miles out of Chicago.

The CZ route mile markers reset, before the end of the Creston sub, to 1 just past Pacific Junction Iowa, some 475 miles out of Chicago.

The mile markers reset again some 17 miles later with the Omaha Amtrak station being at mm 3.

At Denver the CZ route changes between BNSF owned tracks and UP owned tracks so the mile markers reset again.

 

[AmtrakLKL]

Then there are places where the railroad messed up a long time ago and you'll skip over some mileposts on the same route without going very far. There's a great example between Sanford, FL and Winter Park. On the former ACL mainline there is just 749 feet between the A768.0 and A771.1. Mileposts A769 and A770 don't exist.

 

[TinCan782]

You will also run into "gaps" when changing from one subdivision to another. Southern California's Metrolink CP Burbank Junction for example. At this junction, the Ventura Subdivision (ex-SP Coast Line) begins. Traveling north out of LA Union Station Burbank Junction is at MP11.4 on the Valley Sub. On the Ventura Sub it is MP 462.6! The exact same point.

Each "station" location is indeed at a MP location...the MP by the host railroad, not Amtrak.

In addition to a handheld GPS with an external antenna on a suction cup hook on the window, I use railroad maps published by Sonrisa Publications ( http://www.djcooley.com/store/maps/maps.htm) when available for the areas I'm traveling.

 

[niemi24s]

There is usually fairly good agreement when comparing distances between stations found when using FRA Safety Map milepost data and when using mileages given in the Amtrak timetable. The notable exception is the route of the Silver Star. Total mileages for the Star in the timetable are OK down to about where its route diverges from that of the Silver Meteor at Selma NC, but beyond that point the timetable lists only mileages for the Meteor - with a few minor exceptions. When the routes rejoin in Savannah, the timetable mileage of 870 for the Star and 829 for the Meteor are correct (as are the remainder of the Meteor mileages down to Miami).

But south of Savannah the mileages for the Star are largely absent - and the few given (annotated with **) are all incorrect. And so are total Star mileages for the Star given in Wikipedia (1522 miles) and by NARP (1420 miles, derived from erroneous Amtrak timetable data). Oddly enough, the correct total mileage for the Silver Star is 1513 miles as found by using the path tool of Google Earth.

And now that AmtrakLKL mentioned missing mileposts, here's another one in Colorado:



The older topo map shows where MP 394 went.

 

[cirdan]

There are mile markers, so if you are familiar enough with the route to know the marker at the stations you could tell where you are. Usually mile marker 0 is at the city where the predecessor

railroad was headquartered. For example, the CSX mile markers on the Florida trains are based out of Richmond, VA, as that was where the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line interchanged with the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac for service to Washington and beyond via the Pennsylvania Railroad. If you don't know the mile marker locations, you could also use a mobile device to determine your location.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app

That would only work if there was a table that showed the miles at every station. For example if I wake up and look out the window and see a marker indicating 1234 that would be meaningless without the miles for each station.

Aren't there books or online resources that break that down route by route.

I don't kow about the US but definitely in many European countries there are railfan guidebooks or rail atlases that cover the mileage markers on a route by route or line by line basis.

 

[jis]

I must admit I have no idea what the mileage is at a given point on my train rides, and where the mileage marker is, and yet I always have a pretty accurate idea of where we are. It is just a matter of having the right GPS App handy on your smartphone. [emoji57]

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[niemi24s]

While the train is in motion between stations, there are also audible clues than can help pinpoint location....

• Tunnels

• Bridges

• Turnouts - especially slip switches

• Crossings

...provided you know their locations beforehand.

 

[jis]

On familiar routes like the NEC or the Silver Service routes there are many areas where I can roughly tell where we are based on a few audible and visual clues. It really impresses those that are first time or infrequent travelers.

 

[bratkinson]

Unless I'm under the catenary on the NEC, I usually use the Microsoft GPS program and receiver with my Windows 7 laptop. Under the catenary gets spotty results and causes it to draw my route across open fields, open water, sometimes miles from the tracks! My cell phone is my alternate. Either I use the Amtrak web site and check train status at what I think is the next station, or, if I'm willing to wait several minutes to fill the screen, the Asm.Transitdocs.com website. If wifi is available, I save the data. But out in the west, sometimes there's no cellphone coverage, so I make a good guess. I've also downloaded the current schedules of the train(s) I'll be on, so I can make a reasonable estimate based on schedule, as well.

 

[jis]

I use GPS apps that have pre-loaded maps. I use them on airplanes too. So depending on the availability of internet service to load maps on the fly is not an option.

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

Just a little technicality: on railroads they are called mileposts, not mile markers.