Solo surveying along the railroad

Nice photos! Thanks for sharing!

I'm surprised that you're allowed to work solo in the right-of-way. I always thought a lookout was required; is that not the case?

Nice pictures! It seems like you have found a nice niche in the surveying world. Because of your post, I just learned that the Ohio River goes through Pittsburgh. Somehow I never noticed that before. So I'm guessing that's the Ohio or the Allegheny River.

Interesting mount for the TS in the second picture.

As long as I am not using power tools or any other loud noise making things, I fall under "Lone Worker" guidelines. Technically, I really don't have to let anyone know I'm out on the tracks, but I let everyone and there mother know I'm out there even when I'm just working along the tracks not on them. The train crews and our train masters let me know there schedule for the lines I'm going to be working on that day and I usually get a heads up phone call when the train is about 30 minutes away from me. Working directly for the railroad is a little different then when I used to, or when anyone else, works as a sub-contractor or needs to work on the railroad right-of-way.

Actually it's the Monongahela River.

Adam-

Thank you for your pics and post.

When you say 'lay out' what exactly are you laying out ?

The boundary or the physical rail C/L ?

I would not be alone doing that type of work ever.

Too dangerous if you fell and could not get up, no matter how physically fit one is.

Cheers,

Derek

Some interesting shots,

do you have/use the imaging capabilities on the S6? and on the TSC3?

I like the pole mount system for the S6, I suppose you use a resection on it, or do you shoot it in first?
The R6 on the roof is cool, we never used this method of collecting points.
What settings do you use for time and/or distance between the points.

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing!

Christof.

Actually, the Ohio River STARTS at Pittsburgh. Formed by the Allagheny (comes from the north) and the Monongahela (one of the few major rivers in the northern hemisphere that flows south to north).

The entire area has a lot of railroad history. Many of the lines are now abandoned, but some of the main lines still go through. I was on the South Side at Hofbrau Haus last year and they were doing construction on a RR tunnel that I never even knew was there, raising the height of the ceiling so they could double-stack containers, part of a $850 million dollar project by CSX. Norfolk Southern is doing a similar project.

Back in 2003, we surveyed all of the bridges crossing the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers for putting data on Navigation charts. So some of the bridges in these photos look familiar.

Offset to the physcal centerline. On the bridges we are tied off using harnesses and lanyards

Our S6 does not have the camera feature. I collect the gps shots at a 25 foot interval when its mounted to the truck.

Nice shots. I would have loved to survey out of a high railer as yours when we worked on the Alaska railroad right of way... But we used little rattling cold and windy gas cars such as this one from Duane Frank

John,

I worked on the tunnel project you mentioned when I was with a consulting firm before starting with the railroad. The bridge over the Mon river is the one that comes out of our Glenwood yard in Hazelwood. The bkue bridge in the background is the Glenwood highway bridge.

Great post, thank you for sharing.

Because that site had a huge steel mill on it, I never knew that tunnel was there, going underneath the mill rather than through it.

Sound like pretty interesting work. When I was in college (mid 80's), I wanted to take a railroad engineering course, but at the time everyone thought railroads were dying. I see a lot of future now for rail transportation. Hopefully they will improve passenger service as well, I have taken trains in a number of countries around the world, a great way to travel.

When I was a kid, we used to call those gas-cars a dingy. Almost got hit by one once while fishing as a kid.

Cool project and great pix.

I'll add that my favorite pix included the golf bag as your stake bag. That's all I've used for over 20 yrs. You buy yourself a new one for golf every few years, and recycle the old one for your stake bag. They work much better than anything any survey equipment dealer has.

> Interesting mount for the TS in the second picture.

I have one also, it's Trimble's column clamp. We used to fabricate them according to the job, but now they sell them.

Nice pictures.

So are you someone who actually knows where the railroads original CL control is, where the maps are and that they actually exist? Do they let you use them and maybe share them with private surveyors.

Just asking!