| TIMING METHODS AND EQUIPMENT |
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The Old Method
Back in the 1960s and 1970s timing trains followed the same method initiated decades before by the earliest of loggers. It was a case of using a wrist watch with a second hand to take times at passing points, (stations and whole kilometre posts). Making notes during a journey and using an old DB timetable which showed station distances to the nearest tenth of a kilometre provided the accurate distances for all the stations. A mechanical stopwatch was used to take times to the nearest tenth of a second over a four hundred metre distance, using the lineside posts set every two hundred metres on each side of the track in Germany. Those resulting times almost equated to the British quarter mile time that all UK train timers were brought up on! Converting metric distances back to imperial soon saw a log of the journey in a tabular form that, in it's basic design, has been the same for many years.
Digital Revolution
But modern technology has now changed those old timing methods. From the 1980s electronic digital stopwatches, (usually with two or three readouts), have enabled continuous readings to 1/100 second at all passing points, including every km post used for a speed reading, and for the overall time for each start to stop section of a train's running. Know as the continuous electronic timing method it has relegated the wrist watch to just noting the real departure time for later comparison with how the train was performing against the timetable. Unless of course your digital wrist watch also has a built in stopwatch, which is exactly what some timers do use!
About the time digital stopwatches arrived there was an even bigger change in Germany. On electrified lines large numbered km plates on electrification catenary masts replaced many of the old ground posts. These new plates were inaccurate because the main distance on them was the whole kilometre plus the relevant fifth of a kilometre. Catenary masts are not built in line with km distances, so most such km plates are inaccurate, some by up to 50 metres. But most of these plates show the exact metre distance in three small numbers lower down. Often dirty, sometimes missing it is these numbers that a train timer writes down with every 1/100 second passing time. I produce a detailed log, (right), after stopwatch times and exact distance details are fed into a spreadsheet I have developed. This highlights the benefits of using a digital stop watch for "continuous electronic timing", and is a leap forward from the old system of taking isloated stopwatch readings to get speeds. The detail shown covers a part of the overnight Hanse Express with 01 1100 on Aug 4-5th 2001. A final summarised version of the log will appear on this site later. NEXT Global Postioning Systems A further modern help to train timer has come in the form of hand held GPS, (Global Positioning System) units. Provided they are held right by an open window they give a continuous speed reading that is very accurate. Exceptions occur when in steep cuttings or going through tunnels when the satellite signals they rely on are lost. They will also work sometimes through a window, although units with aerials are now becoming available which can be sited to read incoming satellite signals through an open window. Even Time Running A main objective of steam train timers is to record an "Even Time": where the start to stop average speed is at, or better than 60 mph. The magic "mile a minute". Where the time in minutes is equal to, or less than the distance in miles, ie. 40 miles start to stop in 40 minutes or less. There is no metric equivalent. Common on some steam routes in regular steam days, today these are rare achievements. So now English timing "Guru" David Veltom, to whom most timers are honour bound to report such runs, publishes an annual list in the magazine of the Locomotive Club of Great Britain. That list sometimes shows just a few, sometimes maybe a dozen or more within a year. Mainly in Germany and England, with still the possibility of one in Australia. There are still plenty of steam locos capable of achieving an "Even Time" run, but these days it is rarely the loco capability that is the deciding factor. It is whether a pathway can be found for sonderzug running mostly at a maximum of 75 mph: just a few in Germany are sometimes scheduled at 87 mph. The steam hauled train has to fit in with much faster normal traffic. So pathing stops can be frequent, often with a slow approach to a station over a crossing or loop that doesn't help with a fast start to stop time. Other trains, often fast goods trains, will be given piority, meaning that the sonderzug follows behind, suffering signal checks. A lot of sonderzug are behind steam locos driven by regular crews not totally familiar with the routes so they may well have a local driver on board with them. But that doesn't fully overcome the need for more caution. So braking for fixed speed restrictions and for station stops can be early, and reacting to gradient changes can also be slower from a crew unfamilair with a route. So when a run overcomes these obstacles to produce an even time start to stop it really is a red letter day! In 2001 2002 and 2003 I recorded 31 in Germany. A high level unlikely to be repeated, and these formed the bulk of all such runs worldwide. It is likely more went unrecorded in Germany as visits by UK timers are not that frequent. By way of contrast it would be very surprising if any even times went un-recorded in the UK. The UK is the home of train timing and it is reasonable to assume that every train with even a remote chance of recording a mile a minute start to stop time will have timers on board. |
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