GPS With Train Driving

[PaulM]

Hi everyone

I'm a trainee driver trying to master a bunch of quite challenging long-distance routes. I was thinking about investing in a GPS device, such as those made by Garmin, to assist me with this process. The idea would be to geofence important places such as stations and complex curve sequences. The device would then give me an audible and visual notification when I'm within, say, 2 km of them. I want to use it as an aid to training, not as a crutch.

Can anyone recommend a particular brand and model of GPS device? It would need to be satellite-, not cellphone-, based.

As always, many thanks for your thoughts and advice.

[DutchRailnut]

If you are in US the use of such would get you fired, FRA will not allow personal electronic devices other than watch (not even fitbit).

[Allen Hazen]

PaulM's idea sounds like a good one, though. Perhaps the railroad company could develop it (or, if PaulM is tech savvy enough, commission him to develop it) and issue it to trainee train drivers. (Which OUGHT to take care of the legal issue, since if issued by the company it wouldn't be a "personal" electronic device… not that common sense is any guide to legal matters.)

[DutchRailnut]

been suggesting a tom tom railroad edition for years, but it has to be railroad issued, updated every day .
so speeds, speed restrictions, stop signs etc are available at control without having to look for it in bulletins .

[bengt]

There is some anti slip programes for locomotives that use GPS and or/Glonas signals for speed reference.

[Statkowski]

The train's engineer is expected to know the route, from memory, that includes every curve, grade, speed limit, signal location and what's beyond it.

It may be old fashioned, but it works.

[ExCon90]

A Conrail engineer I know told me that part of his qualification exam consisted of being handed a sheet of paper and a pencil and told to draw the railroad from Philadelphia to Reading, putting in all the things mentioned by Statkowski above. I believe a passing grade is 100%, and while it's permitted to retake the test after further study there's a limit to how many times you can do that before being told that you're not going to be an engineer on this railroad. A qualified engineer knows his territory better than most people know their way to work.

[Wayside]

Within the ongoing Positive Train Control (PTC) effort, all physical features of the US railroads (or at least the portions of the railroads that will have PTC) are being mapped/located with high precision. So, the operator may not always know exactly where he/she is at all times, but the PTC system will, and it will display the information graphically for the operator.

[Statkowski]

The operator better damned well know where he or she is at all times. A computer gizmo is nice to have, but nothing beats the seat of one's pants, be it how much the locomotive is pulling, or how much train is pushing the locomotive.