I'm working on a survey for a road re-alignment that spans approx. 1.5 miles of roadway.
I have only 2 reference surveys.
1897 County Survey
1919 State Highway R/W survey.
In my past experience, I have found that the older highway monuments and ties will fit the record information very well in a localized area, but if you go too far beyond your project, things start to fall apart quickly.
Long story short, a collection of old fences, broken/buried concrete highway monuments, 3 drainage structures, a fence post, and a marked stone ended up forming the basis for my R/W mapping.
A silver dollar could hide the errors in the 1919 State R/W survey.
Literally all of the found evidence fit record within .2' or less.
The old concrete box culverts still had visible stations painted on the headwalls. I tied the "+" in the station label. All three fit the 1919 stationing within .12' !!
I have two tangents on either end of the survey that are several thousand feet long. Painted centerline fits the 1919 survey along the entire lengths.
I am impressed with the level of care that was taken, both to establish the R/W, as well as construct the improvements according to the plans.
Those boys did a good job.
I bet if the people involved in the work were still alive, they would take great pride in knowing that 100 years later somebody noticed and appreciated their abilities.
That is fantastic. Our oldest highway surveys date to about 1929. Most I have seen generally avoid being true surveys. Simply grab apparent intersection centers and connect the dots.
That cool. The surveyors took pride in their work. I too have noticed asbuilt measurements to highway structures are usually spot on. My first source to centerline of survey stationing. Bearing given to tangents not too good in the real world. I've recovered some good projects. But never one that close. It takes a good surveyor to get into a old project as well as you have. Job well done. Those old surveyors are giving you a attaboy.
B-)
Jules J., post: 336730, member: 444 wrote: That cool. The surveyors took pride in their work. I too have noticed asbuilt measurements to highway structures are usually spot on. My first source to centerline of survey stationing. Bearing given to tangents not too good in the real world. I've recovered some good projects. But never one that close. It takes a good surveyor to get into a old project as well as you have. Job well done. Those old surveyors are giving you a attaboy.
B-)
Thanks. I had my doubts for awhile. Just could not get started. ALL of the concrete monuments but one had been broken off and were not visible.
This is the one that helped get me started (along with the drainage structures). All of the concrete monuments I found were broken bases buried 12"-16" deep.
Metal detector just does not work very well on them. Who knows were all of the tops went. I repositioned this one over the base and backfilled around it. The next guy will probably not know it was broken.
Great find! I've worked on several where the dot had painted stations on the side pavement 100 to 150 feet off. Almost like they were trying to get you off your game. If you think about it, the old surveyors could do 2 things well, if they were in a good system. 1) they could measure with accuracy and precision. 2) they could turn angles, wrapping angles, and double centering with accuracy and precision. I bet you have that fuzzy warm feeling!
Kudos to you!!!
State highway mapping, at least around here, is mostly great. Sometimes, though, the info is a bit sketchy. I've been able to position myself at or near their work most every time. They located everything and looking for what might still be there is a treasure hunt.
Great job BTW. I love digging up old monuments.
This is something I've experienced as well. There have been some great surveyors in this area in the past (there are great ones now, but I'm not talking about them) and you can tell by retracing their surveys that they followed very tight procedure and they understood the concepts behind what they were doing.
Sadly, it seems that a lot of surveyors today use the modern equipment without much understanding or concern for the concepts behind them. There's a reason that angles were read direct and reverse. There's a reason that traverses were closed. But for the surveyors that don't understand those reasons, there's no reason to do those things because "the machine takes care of all of that".
It always makes me happy when I retrace an old survey and I see things hitting spot on like that.
I have two new part time helpers and surveying is not quite what they expected and they do like their jobs.
They are learning to dig and probe which they never thought would be a requirement for every project.
The quality of their work and the quality of their measurements are not necessarily the same. We had a surveyor here locally that didn't tape very well. Almost all of the measurements we follow today are "short". However, if he showed he set a monument you'd better look CLOSELY. Most of his monuments were crimped top pipes and easily identifiable. I've had more than one argument with attorneys about accepting his pipes rather than deed distances. He was consistent, and you knew his past, easily followed.
Andy
So when did bad work become more common? I've looked over a few local subdivision plats and two of them from the 1950's don't close on paper (& can't find a simple blunder to fix them), so what's on the ground can't possibly match them.
imaudigger, post: 336733, member: 7286 wrote: Thanks. I had my doubts for awhile. Just could not get started. ALL of the concrete monuments but one had been broken off and were not visible.
This is the one that helped get me started (along with the drainage structures). All of the concrete monuments I found were broken bases buried 12"-16" deep.
Metal detector just does not work very well on them. Who knows were all of the tops went. I repositioned this one over the base and backfilled around it. The next guy will probably not know it was broken.
"The next guy will probably not know it was broken."
Won't your Record of Survey drawing mention it?
Bill93, post: 337724, member: 87 wrote: So when did bad work become more common? I've looked over a few local subdivision plats and two of them from the 1950's don't close on paper (& can't find a simple blunder to fix them), so what's on the ground can't possibly match them.
The blunder might still be detectable....I've discovered a couple that I thought were damn near impossible (until I broke the code so to speak). But if you find the blunder, what do you do with it? I mean corners may have still been set that match some math on that bad subdivision, and owners may have built to them, and rights may have ripened. Also, the fact that they meet some aspect of the "deed" (or subdivision math).
Jim in AZ, post: 337729, member: 249 wrote: "The next guy will probably not know it was broken."
Won't your Record of Survey drawing mention it?
I probably should elaborate I suppose. I simply showed that one as found.
Since the map is not finalized, I may possibly add a note to the affect.
I have often found with highway R/W retracements that the quality of the original work varies significantly, perhaps wildly. No doubt a significant portion of it was the care of the original crews, but it also seems that the amount of funding available for the original projects may have had a notable influence as well. For example, I've seen R/W on old U.S. highways vary anywhere from very good to [bleep-blank-censored]; the Interstate highways, however, seem to fit pretty well for the most part, or so it seems. Sure, some of it is due to technological improvements, e.g., Tellurometers, etc., but the Interstate programs had very deep pockets.
Exceptions abound, of course. I remember my supervisor retracing part of a 1955 U.S. 99 R/W centerline where the original tie to a section corner was 1848.09 feet; the 2003 retracement: 1848.09 feet. Gotta love those.
