Track Monitor - the F4 key, problem

[lateagain]

Arizona did originally install metric distance signs on I-19 in AZ (one of the shortest interstates) but ADOT has been switching back to miles over the past 10 years because of motorist confusion. Seems that seeing 88 KPH as a speed limit and driving 88 MPH wasn't a good excuse to try using with law enforcement.....

LOL! Funnily the French Police wouldn't buy that either! In fact we Brit's (well the "travelled" ones) know that a UK number plate in Europe is a magnet for traffic cops .......so unless we're very rich or very stupid ...we're actually VERY good drivers in Europe!

As signs are replaced or construction projects have been done, they're retiring KM and replacing with Miles. That's causing exit numbers to change, which was far more controversial to some business owners who had used exit numbers in their marketing materials.....

Cost of signage kept distances Imperial in the UK without a doubt. My generation (I think I'm geriatric now?! LOL!) learnt both systems so Metrication (well partial metrication) was no big deal to us. THEN some idiot in the department of education decided that this was TOO confusing for little minds ...so for a while our kids only learnt METRIC. NOTHING wrong with metric ...except we use BOTH. Result a generation of very confused kids. They went back to learning both after that. Not exactly rocket science?!

Even weirder is that the US went Decimal with currency right from the start?!!

[EricF]

Arizona did originally install metric distance signs on I-19 in AZ (one of the shortest interstates) but ADOT has been switching back to miles over the past 10 years because of motorist confusion. Seems that seeing 88 KPH as a speed limit and driving 88 MPH wasn't a good excuse to try using with law enforcement.....

Anyone doing 88MPH in a certain famous DeLorean might have other problems on their hands...

[ebnertra000]

From EricF -

Anyone doing 88MPH in a certain famous DeLorean might have other problems on their hands...

True, but it would make it rather difficult for the police to pull you over

[hiball 3985]

OK, I'm old and get confused easily If the route builder set the mileposts at a kilometer distance in both the route and the .trk and we change it to miles it may look right on the track monitor but won't the actual distance really be kilometers

[eric]

Yep. Changing the TRK file will affect what you see for units of measure during the game, and the game engine will do the conversions if speed limits were defined in KPH.

The numbering assigned to a post is pretty much locked in stone (or code...) by the route builder when it's placed. You can make all of the MP 99 if you want to, and the game won't care what the TRK file says once it's written to the W file and the TDB.

[geepster775]

But then again why would a route builder set kilometer posts rather than mile posts when mile posts are the official real world measurement tool for all of Canada's railways?

[hiball 3985]

I don't know if they were set in kilometer distance, only Rory can tell us that. But what confused me was while running a train I was clicking off the miles pretty fast. Look at the distance between the mile posts shown on the monitors between the CN and Cima routes.
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[ebnertra000]

I wonder if it isn't that Canadian railroads did things sort of the way the British did, mixing Metric and Imperial measurements. But looking at a copy of a CN version of the Canadian Rail Operating Rules, I see no mention of any metric units at all. Perhaps Metric units were used in the past but not all lines have been converted to Imperial?

[baldwin]

As there are 1.6 kilometers to one mile, those "mileposts" on Blackfoot are kilometers.

[hiball 3985]

OK, so they may have used metric on some Canadian routes.

[geepster775]

OK, so they may have used metric on some Canadian routes.

"They" being the route builder, not the real world railway builders. The real railroad has always been mileposts.

As there are 1.6 kilometers to one mile, those "mileposts" on Blackfoot are kilometers.

Actually, it varies on the route . You can go 10 miles up the line and things change radically.

Around the low 40's its 5 markers per 3 miles fore and aft.



Later on in the upper 50's its 3 markers per 3 miles fore and aft.



Not a criticism of the route, but given the modifications and tear-downs that were involved here, sometimes a route builder may need to stuff 7 prototypical miles into a 5 mile stretch when in-game to make the mileposts in the cities and towns land somewhere in the ballpark.

[eric]

That could just be projection skew... I've done a lot of track work in upper Michigan, and the skew is pretty noticeable above 45* latitude with the world projection used by MSTS and now ORTS. I'd imagine in Canada it gets worse.