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You may find station numbers that are just imprinted into asphalt when a roadway has been resurfaced. One of the more "fun" jobs I had as an engineer assistant many years ago was laying out the stationing on a resurfacing job along interstate 70 near St. Elmo IL when we were putting asphalt over the top of the original concrete. I was given a bucket with solvent and a bunch of big brass numbers. At the start of the day the engineer determined what the first station was and marked it for me. I then laid out the numbers for the station (like above something like 105 + 50) down on the newly laid asphalt. I would back away - the roller would come along and press the numbers into the pavement while compacting and leveling out the asphat. After that I got the job of prying out the numbers, cleaning them up, draging the bucket, numbers and tools 50' or 100' down the road as I used a measuring wheel to figure out the distance. When I got the prescribed distance down the road I figured out the new station - laid out the numbers and started out all over again. Makes for a long day in 95+ degrees sunlight and even hotter asphalt.

Along the older roads like US Route 45 in Illinois you may see a number of ROW markers. In Illinois they are still used as a fairly accurate boundry marker to set the line between the area IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation) maintains and the landowner. Almost all landowners still maintain the grass and land past the ROW marker and right up to the roadway edge, but legally the space between the ROW marker and the pavement is the property of the state. These come in handy when IDOT or another entity has to dig, trench, construct etc. close to the road. If it is a planned job they will survey out the ROW - but in an emegency the ROW marker makes it easy to know when you are runniong your equipment on the land owners front lawn and not on the state highway. The ROW has changed in many areas since the ROW markers were placed and the markers are not moved to reflect that change most of the time so even this can be a gamble. Like most states many of the markers are beat up by landowners or in this area mostly by farm implements. As mentioned earlier they are generally NOT used for surveying with the exception of a benchmark for a specific construction job. When I worked for the DOT 15+ years ago they often wanted a "permenate" structure to inscribe an "X" on to use as a benchmark for surveying. The ROW marker was a good item for this since they were not moved very often and people were used to working around them. Engineers would shoot measurments from the nearest benchmark or if lucky a principal meridian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_meridian) back to this ROW / benchmark and then all of the survey measurments for the construction job came off that benchmark. A little math to figure in the offset from the jobsite benchmark to the principal meridian or public benchmark would locate all the points of the construction site on the big map - so to say. If you REALLY wanted to piss off an engineer you found his construction zone benchmark and moved it a few inches one way or another just before they did the survey for the job site, but building a bridge that was 6 inches off to one side of the roadway is not that funny - so resist the urge. Of course with GPS - there is little need to make the offset benchmark any more. I was thinking about a few chaches using ROW markers. I may do that this summer!