Passenger Trains > Help with buying a GPS for travel on Amtrak

Hello,
 I'm looking to buy a GPS unit for use while riding Amtrak.  Any suggestions or important information on how to set it up.
Thanks in advance 
Robert

To be quite honest, my Android phone using google maps worked really well. Another traveler said his Apple phone had an equivalent package. The google tablet would have been better however it communicates only over wi-fi which is not available on most trains.

Opening the app immediately displayed a map with my location pinpointed. Zooming in and out showed nearby roads and town names, and track detail was very good - Surprisingly good.

I used it on the Auto Train where there was mostly good data reception (3g,4g) along the route and battery life was not an issue with a nearby electrical plug.

Michael

I just got off the chief yesterday.  Used my iPad the whole wayu, using a cuople dif apps  

I bought a good GPS several years ago and used it when I traveled on Amtrak. It worked fine but as time passed and cell phones improved I made a change.  My I Phone gives my location on the map nearly all the time and my scanner gives speed and keeps me informed if we run into trouble. I'm always going to have my I Phone and scanner with me while traveling Amtrak, there is no set-up as there was with the GPS and one less piece of equipment to carry in my bag. Nothing wrong with using a GPS but this works better for me.

Richard Cook
Wichita Falls, TX

My Samsung Note (Android) with its sizable screen is just perfect. Google maps give me a wonderful view of where I am and what is trainside. I also run GPS Speed Graph which is very accurate on speed.

I use a Garmin GPSmap 64s. No cell coverage needed as the maps are stored in the device's memory.

I create a "route", station to station, and it keeps me informed time and distance to the next station as well as showing current location on the map. Of course, it also shows speed, direction, etc. 

After the trip, the "tracklog" may be displayed on Google Earth (or other maps). The tracklog is also used to geotag my photographs to place them on a map when uploaded to Flickr.

John

I am a great fan of an iOS app called Pocket Earth. It's a set of down-loadable hi-res maps for all continents that requires only the GPS in your device. Great for remote ares where there is no cell connection for internet access (or for travel abroad where a data connection can be prohibitively expensive). The app allows tracking as well.
Incidentally, Google Maps will offer downloadable maos at some point in the near future.

WP17

I use a app called Speed Box on my iPhone. Works great.

My usual choice is my android tablet with an app called maps.me that will download entire states for offline use.  Then, no wifi or cell connection needed, just power and a seat next to a window.

Another good app is Speedometer GPS.

Most of the apps now use cell phone tower triangulation, and consume both your data as well as your phone's battery.  Not that there is anything wrong with that as long as you have cell phone coverage. 

You typically don't get a look at enough satellites inside a railcar for a traditional dash-mounted auto type GPS to work well.  Unless you are in a dome car!

But back in the day when previous generations of people used laptops without cell phone connectivity, there were USB-enabled plug in GPS receivers on the market.  Moving map programs worked just fine with the plug in, stuck to the window with a suction cup.

Microsoft marketed such a little receiver they purchased from a vendor which they relabled and sold as their own with their "streets and trips" software.  It was called the GPS-500.  I do not know if it is still available.  Streets and trips in the earlier versions had ancient out of date railroads on it, which was kinda cool, since it had many abandoned lines still showing.  Unfortuately, most GPS systems today omit showing rail lines altogether.  If you can find an obsolete version dated 2004 or earlier, the railroads will be on it (but of course newly constructed highways will not be).

Another non-cell phone system that works very well are the aviation programs for ipads and android based tablets.  There seem to be 100's such programs on the market today, and they don't require being cell-phone enabled.  Usually they come with the aviation data base, but there is almost always a terrestrial mapping option for in vehicle use.  While these programs usually espect you to be in a canopy of an aircraft or to have lots of glass to see the satellites through, they seem to have gotten very sensitive of late, and generally seem to work pretty well.  It is possible you will get a warning alert that the device would like to see more satellites for best accuracy, it will still work.  One that I found worked well in trains, planes, and automobiles was Anywheremap out of Kansas.  Anywhere map showed railroads on the aviation side, but not on the auto side, and I suspect this may be true of many of the "convertible" data bases.  This is because many VFR pilots in ancient days used rail lines on the ground as visual cues.  There may still be some aviators who still do this today, although I suspect that pilots, like vehicle drivers on the ground, are more preoccupied with their gizmos and their social media, and don't pay as much attention to the business of navigating as the once did. 


  



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/15 08:37 by NewRiverGeorge.

FRA has a great crossing app based on arc gis.   scanners are great, just dont forget your ear buds, not all your fellow passengers want to hear axle counts from the nearby detector!  hehe  

My Garmin Nuvi does not have RR tracks on it.

Thanks to all that replied to my question.. You gave some apps to look at along with other ideas.
Robert

My Garmin worked well on my last trip.  My cell phone has maps too, but I haven't tried to used it for that.

The GPS satellites don't spend much time at elevation angles that your phone can't see out the train/car windows. New chipsets give rather extraordinary levels of GPS sensitivity not experienced even 5 years ago. A-GPS helps by using cell tower signals to in effect give a "first guess" to your location. You may see fix times (how long it takes app to find location from app start) of 5-15 seconds.

That is, any modern smartphone should perform adequately for rail travel. You will be unlikely to receive satellites in a narrow azimuthal region along the direction of train travel, but you may be surprised to see that you also receive satellites from the windows across the aisle if you choose to check out one of GPS status apps that show you exactly which satellites you're using.

Note: non-offline apps like Google Maps can consume substantial amounts of data, perhaps more than any other app you use while traveling. Recent versions of Google Maps allow downloading preselected areas before a trip for 30 days.

With OsmAnd offline map app, the basic coarse resolution map shows the roads that Amtrak runs on (not in fine detail, but you can download up to 9 more state maps for free).