Eastern Railroad Discussion > "bench marks" along the railroad tracks

The Wall Street Journal has an article this weekend about the growing hobby of bench mark searching.  These round disks were attached by the US Coast & Coast Geodetic Survey in millions of locations over the years. They form a network of reference points for surveyors, property owners, etc and replaced the old reference points attached to more transient objects. Railroad bridge abutments were especially favored.

The article mentions one hunter, who finds these disks in the area of Springville NY. That's about halfway between Arcade and Gowanda, both active railroad towns, and both legacy Erie Railroad, I believe.

The disks he found that day are part of a nationwide network of nearly 1 million similarly marked points whose information such as latitude, longitude and elevation are maintained in a government database. Data on these points is used for a variety of surveying and engineering purposes including drawing maps and laying roads or sewer lines. The bench marks—many well over 100 years old—were placed by surveyors atop high peaks, along important roadways, on the sides of public buildings, and everywhere in between.

subscription site, but may be available on the internet

http://www.wsj.com/articles/forget-geocaching-bench-mark-hunting-is-the-new-nerdy-hobby-1430493593

I found one a few weeks ago while railfanning the Bayard near Alliance, OH.

Posted from Android

Another nerdy hobby of mine :-)  They also can be looked up here.  http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/datasheets/   They were commonly affixed to interlocking towers and stations, I've even seen some instances where they were on the concrete "pedistals" for the rods associated with "armstrong"  interlocking plants.  There's also "Free standing" survey markers along many rail lines, both active (examples local to me are the B&O Toledo sub & the Willard sub - especially east of Deshler)  and long gone (the former Clover Leaf in Henry County Ohio has a few).  Other "non railroad" siting locations included bases for water towers, and public works buildings.
Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Wall Street Journal has an article this
> weekend about the growing hobby of bench mark
> searching.  These round disks were attached by
> the US Coast & Coast Geodetic Survey in millions
> of locations over the years. They form a network
> of reference points for surveyors, property
> owners, etc and replaced the old reference points
> attached to more transient objects. Railroad
> bridge abutments were especially favored.
>
> The article mentions one hunter, who finds these
> disks in the area of Springville NY. That's about
> halfway between Arcade and Gowanda, both active
> railroad towns, and both legacy Erie Railroad, I
> believe.
>
> The disks he found that day are part of a
> nationwide network of nearly 1 million similarly
> marked points whose information such as latitude,
> longitude and elevation are maintained in a
> government database. Data on these points is used
> for a variety of surveying and engineering
> purposes including drawing maps and laying roads
> or sewer lines. The bench marks—many well over
> 100 years old—were placed by surveyors atop high
> peaks, along important roadways, on the sides of
> public buildings, and everywhere in between.
>
> subscription site, but may be available on the
> internet
>
>

There is one on the Sidney, Ohio Big 4 depot. 

I'm not into specifically looking for these, but if I see one during an outing I will get a photograph. This particular one is on the old GTW/CSXT Tower in Holly, Michigan, where the GTW/CN Holly Subdivision crosses the CSXT Saginaw ? Subdivision.

The marker is located on the side of the tower facing the tracks, just a foot or so above the ground, near the left corner if you were standing track-side looking at the tower.

The two photographs were taken on April 14, 2014. 


Ron

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Probably 99% of the benchmarks along the track
are elevation-only. No reason to put lat-lon stations
there.