Measuring train speed in youtube videos

[strauss44]

Howdy assiesteve. I have made some discoveries. There are hectometer posts on French lines, although not visible, or maybe not there, on very high-speed lines.

They are positioned on some tracks at 100m, on other tracks at 200m. On French tracks I have seen only short posts on the left side of the track with a white marker showing the sub-km numbers, although in a video you usually can't see then numbers.

But here is the reason why I couldn't see them, or count them easily. First, they are often hidden by grass or weeds, or they are located (hidden) just behind one of the posts for the overhead power lines.

Then at every full km they have a tall post with a larger board showing the full km. But those posts may be on the right side of the track, thereby interrupting the counting pattern on the left side of the track, easily missed at 140km.

The full-km markers are a mixed lot. Sometimes they are white boards with black or red letter, or black boards with white or blue letter.

Anyway, once you can spot the variation installed on a particular track, it’s not too hard to see them, count them and time them to calculate the speed.

Thanks for your input, Fritz from Canada.

[aussiesteve]

G'day Fritz,
I am pleased that you have solved the situation.
As mentioned earlier, I am intrigued by the differing railway safe working systems employed around the globe.
There was a fair bit of technical information available, if you knew where to look on the www.
Alas, many railways are now restricting access to technical documents due to terrorism.
Plus, not being able to spruike the lingo is also a challenge.
One Canadian post that baffled me was the horizontal oblong board with a pair of dots.
It has been a while since I last viewed any Canadian cab ride video clips.
So, I now forget the presentation of the post, but think that is was a white board with black dots, though might be the other way around.
I had pondered if this was to do with flanger warnings due to the position of these posts.
I did finally manage to confirm the purpose.
This board being very different to that utilized in the USA.
No need for flanger warnings here, thankfully we don't suffer those horrific conditions.
Though, back towards the end of the soot belcher era here, a train did get stranded in snow.
The crew uncoupled the soot belcher in an attempt to ram through the snow.
The soot belcher then becoming stuck at a distance from the train.
The cattle had to hoof it to nearby farm houses to survive the conditions.
The train finally recovered after the snow melted.
And, I have stood for a couple of hours in snow protecting my train which had stalled.
I think that the worst incident that I know of occurred in Tasmania on the Melba branch.
Winter is nasty in that region of Tassie.
The Melba ore train derailed in a deep snow drift and became stranded.
Poor Tiny the driver had to endure around 72 hours stranded until a highrail vehicle was able to reach him.
He was permitted to keep the lead loco idling for heating and radio communication.
Each night that I was working on the South Line, I would hear TC call Tiny to check up on him.
You might imagine the reason for his nickname.
That did save him from fading completely away during that period of nil tucker.
I DETEST winter.
Steve.

[Bevan Price]

Be careful trying to measure speeds from videos. There is not always an exact 1:1 comparison between true time and apparent times as measured on videos.

[strauss44]

Hi Bevan, you of course correct, but it's fun anyway. I find that videos of slow trains are sometimes sped up. I haven't found any fast ones that were sped up. Also when the video is sped up you can more than not tell that it's a time-lapse.