California Surveyors Forums

I thought there was a thread on this, but did not find it when searching, so my apologies if this is a repeat.

I am doing a long straightaway in downtown Burlingame and have tied in about 8 of the vertical rails from 10 years of traverse data. Good that I did, because they took out about 5 or 6 since then.

I was curious what others measure to when using them to analyze the right of way. They are about 4"x4" in total envelope. I am considering using the center. I was also thinking of using the larger 4" base section, but at least out here, they are not consistent with their orientation. I would say most have the flat section facing away from the tracks, but some had the travelled section facing away. One even had it turned at a 90 and neither side was facing away.

Another idea is simply to use the face that is farthest from the track. But I have no idea how they were set in the first place. If it was just a worker pulling an even 30 feet off the center, it may be that he plunked the center of that rail on the 30.

I suspect this is similar to what people say about Caltrans stuff, and you have to analyze them all, and it depends on the worker installing them, etc etc.

Sounds like you're talking about T-Rails set along the ROW. The top of rail faces the RR property and you should intersect the CL of the rail with the bottom of rail, my picture shows it better than I can describe it, please look at the attachment.
Hope this helps.

They are set vertically along the R/W lines. Some of the companies used them for R/W markers, set in the ground, instead of pipes.

Mfarrauto has it right according to Charlie Tucker, who gave the "Railroad Surveying 101" seminars a couple of years back.

E_Page wrote:Mfarrauto has it right according to Charlie Tucker, who gave the "Railroad Surveying 101" seminars a couple of years back.

Charlie has a wealth of knowledge for railroad surveying and recommend attending any seminars he puts on in the future.

I imagine that these rail posts protrude from the ground several feet. Where is the measurement point if they are leaning from vertical?

I was not familiar with the term "T Rail". I will use that from now on. I always coined them "vertical rails" for the lack of a better term.

I will compare the locations with the tracks and other monuments and see how things fit. Most of the T-rails fit fairly well considering their likely age, but there are 2-3 that seem to be off a foot. I find it hard to believe on a 4000-foot +/- straightaway there would be a foot of float.

One one side where there are masonry buildings (granted not that old - probably your standard 1950s-1960s cinderblock style), which one would expect to be very close to the right of way for about a block, there is a T-rail next to it, and it falls just over a foot away from the building. This is one of the rails that seems to be off a foot compared to track location, and other T-rails I find further to the north and south of this area. The building seems to be within about 0.2'-0.3'.

Very interesting to compare things. I also have improvements on other blocks and such to check perpendicular block distances as they hit the R.O.W., so there are other things I need to check out.

In the case of the building, that seems like evidence that the monument might have been moved so that the building could be built essentially at a "0" setback.

Contactors and carpenters often have no idea of the importance of position of monuments, so sometimes they think they're doing everydoby a favor by staning the thing back up in the general location where it was after it had been knocked over.

Even if the tracks just kinda-sorta fit the mons, it sounds like your in pretty good condition with just the mons.

Good going!