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jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-27-01, 07:55 PM (EST) "Mileage - How to Judge?" When laying track I just assumed that a 1500m section was approximately one mile (actually 1600 meters is closer) so I take a section of 1500m track and "assume" this is close to a mile when placing milepost markers. The route display window in the sim. shows approx. 3 miles per display... sometimes my mileage markers seem too close. Is this method of assuming 1500m of track to be 1500 meters inaccurate? Any tips and suggestions on accurately "guesstimating" mileage when laying trackage would be greatly appreciated.
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-27-01 1 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? chuckzeiler Aug-27-01 2 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? sniper297 Aug-27-01 3 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-27-01 4 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-28-01 9 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 10 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-28-01 18 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 23 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? DKlemm Aug-28-01 5 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? beluga Aug-28-01 6 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 7 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? DKlemm Aug-28-01 8 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 11 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? ccyko Aug-28-01 12 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 13 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? bdobyns Aug-28-01 16 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? ccyko Aug-29-01 27 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? bdobyns Aug-29-01 28 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? ccyko Aug-29-01 29 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-28-01 21 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? bdobyns Aug-28-01 22 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? ATSF Nov-15-01 30 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? beluga Aug-28-01 14 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? LawrenceKellie Aug-28-01 15 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? nwallace Aug-28-01 17 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-28-01 19 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-28-01 20 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? landnrailroader Aug-28-01 24 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? milgarfield2001 Aug-28-01 25 RE: Mileage - How to Judge? jkcooney Aug-29-01 26

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LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-27-01, 08:09 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" There is no 1500m section. At least in the manner that you are thinking. The longest straight piece if 500m. You are addressing curves, which there is ample material to explain what you want by performing a search in this forum. It does not need repeating.Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
chuckzeiler (155 posts)
Aug-27-01, 08:48 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Try this. Run at 30 mph on your route. Two minutes equals one mile. I've noticed that the Marias Pass route doesn't work out OK with this method (there are "long" miles and "short" miles, based on the original programming), but if you can get up to 60mph, you should be doing a mile a minute. Unless you're a KUJU programmer. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (848 posts)
Aug-27-01, 09:55 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-27-01 AT 10:02 PM (EST)What you're looking at is a 1500 meter radius curve, and there's some kind of trig formula involving pi to figure out how long it is based on the 10d or 20d, but unless you want to be exact I would just turn on the tile texture tool so you get those black line squares, which are about 130 meters on a side, and guesstimate from there.

The sections going in the cardinal compass directions are easy, but you got to add some for the diagonals. Also, don't pay any attention to the surly assholes who have nothing better to do than replying to questions with this "I have no patience for your stupidity" attitude. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-27-01, 10:37 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" The distance of the black grids can change based on what Terrain Detail Scaling you use. If you use the default "1" then there are 8 squares to a 2 km grid, or each square is 1/4 km. However, if you use 0.03125 for the Terrain Detail Scaling as I do, there are a lot, lot more.Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-28-01, 11:56 AM (EST) 9. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Jim... Thanks for your response. I have essentially been doing what you suggest and have figured that approx. 7 tiles equals one mile but as you point out this is cumbersome when factoring in curves that hit diagonals. I will persevere. I don't worry about the arrogant replies that suggest "check the messages" since I teach college courses and am used to that type of impatience. We need to keep in mind that not everyone has been working on this since June. New people come onboard every day and the archives for this site are too deep for even a routine search! Thanks for all your help.
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 12:59 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Since I am the one who has been declared as arrogant and a surley asshole, I would like to respond to the point.I respectfully (now does that clear my name of arrogant and asshole?) disagree with your statement that the archives are too deep for a routine search.Almost every time I have a question, I search the archives first. They are not too deep (of course this is my opinion). And a simple search can remedy a lot of needless (there I go again, arrogant and surley asshole) questioning.As a teacher of college courses, certainly when asked a simple question that the source material has already covered, isn't your reply, "What does the source material say?" or some such variation? I have taught different courses since 1981, and if the answer is in the source material, I direct the student back to the source material.Therefore, just for the fun of it, I performed a search, just for the fun of it. I took your original post and looked for two search terms that may be restrictive enough to not have an overwhelming number of responses.I used the two terms "1500 curve" as the search values.The resulting search yielded 6 threads, one of which was this thread, which I discounted. Certainly five threads is not too deep.I chose the most promising thread, based upon the subject line and the first several words of the message.I looked at that thread. With that, I noticed that "radius" was used a lot. So, I performed a second search using just the word "radius."This search yielded 31 results. I will say, that is a bit daunting. Of course several from the first search were also included.Looking down through those posts, I would notice that 1500m section did not refer to the linear length of the track, but it meant something else. I would have found this thread:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/1048.htmland, since I teach college courses, I could have figured out the answer to my question.All of the above searching took about 10 minutes, of which approximately 1/2 was spent writing parts of this response. And the postings you would have read would have yielded a lot more information than "guesstimate from there."So, am I arrogant? a surley asshole? Before you give an unequivocal affirmative response, please consider the following thread:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/1387.htmlWould you like to guess how much time responding to someone who had already-done-a-search-found-a-lot-of-material-read-the-material-but-wasn't-able-to-make-it-work took? Somewhere between 1/2 and 1 hour. I took my own route, modified it, took several screen shots, modified those, uploaded them all. Why? Because someone had already checked the "source material" and still wasn't able to figure it out. Somehow the label of surley, arrogant asshole just doesn't fit here.At the MSTS Fan Site message board, found at http://communities.msn.com/TrainSimulatorFanSite/trainsimmessageboardsjoinin.msnw, there is no search capability. People must, if they want answers, repeat questions. However, here we have a very nice board which promotes searching. And it doesn't really matter if you bought the software when it first released or yesterday, the search capabilies remain constant. So your comment, "We need to keep in mind that not everyone has been working on this since June. New people come onboard every..." is really a non sequitur. The length of time that a person has owned the software has nothing to do with using the search functions for this forum.Could I have stated my fourth and fifth sentences better? Certainly.Could Sniper have stated his "surly asshole" comment without being a surly asshole? Certainly.Could you have stated your "arrogant" comment without being arrogant? Certainly.But all three of those "Certainlys" do not negate the fact that with a little initiative and time on your part, this entire thread, including my surley arrogant asshole comment, Snipers surley asshole comment, and your arrogant comment, would have been obviated by your research.So, without a doubt, I will continue to be declared a surley, arrogant asshole. And that is okay. Do you know why? Because even though I may be one, I *know* I am one--even without your confirmation. And when people ask questions which is in the "source material," I will continue to state, "Search the source material." I may choose my words better, but I will continue to say it. AND, evidenced by the above identified thread, when a person says, "I tried to find the material, but you know, I still can't get it to work," I'll put the extra effort in helping that person really understand what is going one.One final point. You stated, "I teach college courses and am used to that type of impatience." The person responding to the question (that person being you, which is implied in the above sentence) is NOT the impatient one. The person who will not go to the source material, take a little time to try to find the answer in the source material is the impatient one. Think of what that means. If I am you, and you are the student, then you, as the student, were the impatient one. :OLawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:29 PM (EST) 18. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Time to adjust your medication. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 08:25 PM (EST) 23. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Wow. Clever. hahahahahahhaha. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
DKlemm (664 posts)
Aug-28-01, 09:09 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" I use around 1600 meters as a mile. I have the advantage of also havig Illinois Central track plans which show the mile markers and it makes placement easier when the show up next to a switch. Between known points, I count up close to 1600 meters.David Klemm
Illinois Central
24 miles done, 36 to go!
Dunkin to Clinton IL
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beluga (87 posts)
Aug-28-01, 10:21 AM (EST) 6. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-01 AT 10:27 AM (EST)LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-01 AT 10:26 AM (EST)Use signals to measure miles. The track monitor will tell you how far until next signal. Write doem Lat. and Lon. then insert mile markers. works like a charm.
See http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/1384.html Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 10:35 AM (EST) 7. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" What's "doem"?Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
DKlemm (664 posts)
Aug-28-01, 10:42 AM (EST) 8. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Is that Alabama for done!!!!!! : )David Klemm
Illinois Central
24 miles done, 36 to go!
Dunkin to Clinton IL
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LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 01:00 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Well, you know, it wasn't until your remark that I figured out it was "down." The person typing the message had his/her fingers over the wrong keys!Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ccyko (368 posts)
Aug-28-01, 01:21 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" there are 30 cm in a foot, 5280 feet in a mile... therefore 1584 meters per mile. When placing track try to calculate it in 100ths of a mile, then you can use this equation to figure out how much track to lay. z x 5280 x .3 = y where z is the original distance in miles (e.g. 2 tenths of a mile is z = 0.20), and y is the amount of track needed in meters. Then what you would do is place the milepost at the end of the track you've layed, and continue on. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 01:30 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Nice tip. I think that I will go back to my route, mark down all the track used, and just figure out how many miles of track I have laid.Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bdobyns (170 posts)
Aug-28-01, 05:00 PM (EST) 16. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" So, if I understand you correctly, using your example, the equation would be (.20 x 5,280 x .3 = y) which comes to y=316.8 meters. That means that I would have to lay 3 100mstrt, 1 10mstrt, and ~7mstrt or use dynamic track to get the 6.8? Then after that lay a milepost down to signify a mile or just 2/10ths of a mile? Did I understand you correctly or am I just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off.(Can you tell that I failed the metric system... )Brad
Siskiyou Line
Black Butte, CA to Medford/White City, OR
10 miles done 70 more to go
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ccyko (368 posts)
Aug-29-01, 11:51 AM (EST) 27. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" if you placed .2 miles of track, then the marker post would be .2 miles greater / less than the last post, if you placed a mile of track the post you place should be a mile greater / less than the last Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bdobyns (170 posts)
Aug-29-01, 01:09 PM (EST) 28. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-29-01 AT 01:09 PM (EST)Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh OK...I gotcha now. So, then using the formula, a mile would be (1 x 5,280 x .3 = y) or y=1584 meters which is then equal to a 1500mstrt track (or pieces thereof), 1 50m strt track, 3 10mstrt track and a 4m dynamic track piece. Once you've laid that, you can place a milepost and keep going. It seems like that would also help if you wanted to place signals at accurate points along the line as well. Most signals have a milepost of, say, 1865.3. If you have a milepost at 1865, you could then use the formula to determine how many pieces of track you would need to lay in order to place that signal .3 miles. Very smart thinking CCYKO! Thanks,
Brad Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ccyko (368 posts)
Aug-29-01, 05:02 PM (EST) 29. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" that's how I've been measuring distances for the 'L'! -Chris Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:36 PM (EST) 21. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Very, very close to what I have been doing ... I was ballparking about 1600 meters....close enough for government work! Thanks for the help.
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bdobyns (170 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:41 PM (EST) 22. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-01 AT 07:43 PM (EST)LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-01 AT 07:42 PM (EST)Hey, there Ocala FLA...I am a native Floridian from Jax. now living in Oregon (boy talk about culture shock... ) I would love to do the FEC from Jax. to Miami. Have you thought about doing the SCL/CSX out that way? I remember a BIG yard that I-95 crosses over on the way to Jax. that used to be the SCL yard near the Ocala area. Do you know the yard I am talking about? Talk to ya' later...Brad Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ATSF (95 posts)
Nov-15-01, 09:53 PM (EST) 30. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Its 1609.44m = 1 mi 30.48m = 100 feet Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
beluga (87 posts)
Aug-28-01, 03:22 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Please forgive my typo, Poindexter Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
LawrenceKellie (619 posts)
Aug-28-01, 04:27 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Not a problem. Just had me trying to figure out what was going one. Lawrence Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
nwallace (43 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:13 PM (EST) 17. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" What I did for my few kilometer markers was to place one and then drive using the signals or station for about 5 kmI placed the markers and then timed with a stopwatch how long it took the editor to follow my track from post to post.For a Kilomenter it was roughly 20 secondsas it figures out in the route I am no more than 200 meters out for my markers.It's not very accurate but I don't have a problem with it. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:31 PM (EST) 19. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Probably in a rush to check out the source material
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL
I love it all..... even the temper tantrums! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-28-01, 07:35 PM (EST) 20. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" Signals do work by showing distance to the next point but they are time consuming and for a work in progress one annoying problem keeps cropping up, to wit: if the Route Editor gets touchy (as it often does) it may refuse to load certain signals at certain points do you must then delete these to proceed with with building your route. Nevertheless, I will try this again in my ballpark attempt to come close. Maybe I'll just post a milepost marker every 2 miles. Thanks for the tips!
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
landnrailroader (57 posts)
Aug-28-01, 10:24 PM (EST) 24. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" I have access to CSX track charts, and I am working on a rather crooked route of theirs, or "mine" as I retired from there earlier this year. On CSX charts, the actual distance between Mileposts varies, and is rarely 5280', but the actual distance is indicated on the chart. Each chart page shows 5 miles of track, and is drawn at 3000' per inch. Although there is a lot of inaccuracy in the location of mileposts in the rail RR world, they are still the standard by which things are located from an operational standpoint. With the advent of inexpensive GPS equipment, some roads, including CSX are working on inventorying all of their control points, crossings, turnouts, etc. by locating them with GPS coordinates, which are typically good within 15' or less.Since the distance shown in the RE window varys according to your "altitude", the method of using 500m sections is as good as any. I would hope that someone at MS reads this train of messages, and realises that a nice touch would be a command that would let you click the cursor on the track, and as long as you held it down, and traced over the track, you would get an accumulative distance in some window - but until then, we will do as best we can.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
milgarfield2001 (18 posts)
Aug-28-01, 10:54 PM (EST) 25. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" The reason you think that your mileage is strange is because it is strange! You "mile" is only 4,875 feet. A mile is 5280 feet long. A mile is about 1,624 meters long. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (526 posts)
Aug-29-01, 09:35 AM (EST) 26. "RE: Mileage - How to Judge?" It's even stranger than that since I'm counting approx. 7 tiles to the "mile". But as I noted in an earlier reply: "close enough for government work". It is, after all, a simulation of life and not real life. Thanks for the feedback. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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