+scolba Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 Hi Guys! I was visiting my p's in Alabama this past weekend and i found 3 marks!! only one for sure, and thats the one i'm having troubles getting a picture of. It was on a railroad bridge over the tennessee river. i was totally stoked!! but that was my 3rd find ever....the first two i'm having trouble identifying, and was hoping you guys could help. I found them by accident in Town Creek, AL, but can't find them in the database. I guess they could be something else, other than a Benchmark.....i just don't know what. There are two of them and were about 100 feet apart. Here are the pics: PC128 PT127 Sadly I didn't have my GPS with me at the time, so i don't have coordinates, but the first one is approximately 250' from the highway 101/highway 20 intersection in Town Creek, AL. What do you guys think? Thanks as always, and I'll post the railroad bridge pic shortly! I think its neat! Scott Quote Link to comment
tosborn Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 (edited) It looks to me like these are local survey marks for a curve - probably for a road or a railroad. PC - "point of curve" is the point where a circular curve begins. PT - "point of tangent" is the point where the curve ends. Edited July 28, 2006 by tosborn Quote Link to comment
+scolba Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 (edited) hmmm...well i seem to be good at finding non benchmark marks, then.... lol....oh well. here are the pics of my REAL first find!!!! WOOOT!!! EF1101 Edited July 28, 2006 by scolba Quote Link to comment
Bill93 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 If that's an active RR line, I wouldn't go there. I do look along rail lines but only if I have a clear escape route. This strikes me as unusual because I'd never seen a flat disk with the raised center used in the 1930's. It looks a little like some 1970's disks I've seen, except those were aluminum and had more lettering. It has the proper '74' stamping to match the designation, and those logging it seem to think it is in the right place, so I guess it must be the right disk. Quote Link to comment
+scolba Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 (edited) its no longer active. the old tracks have been inactive for quite some time, and this is actually part of a local trail system that has a walking path under the bridge. So its all good! I'm a little leary of some of the ones on rails too... the other markers were in between a road and a school...i didn't see any tracks nearby, but im not from there area, so i could have missed them.....so are you guys pretty sure thats what they are for? Edited July 28, 2006 by scolba Quote Link to comment
Bill93 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 As to the concrete posts, I'm not a professional but from what I've read it does look like markers for a curve. It could be a curved road, railroad, or a property boundary. The distances would be in 100 foot 'stations' plus additional feet. So the distance around the curve would be +12860 - 12724 ---------- 136 feet. The straight-line distance between the posts would be less than the curve length depending on the degree of curve, but will be very close to this for any but the longest road or rail curves or the sharpest of boundaries. So the test of the theory is whether this predicts the distance accurately. I do notice one strange thing. My reading suggests that the PC should have the smaller station number and the PT the larger one, and this is opposite. So it might be a 136 ft straight section between two curves. And maybe there are posts at the other ends of these curves as well. Quote Link to comment
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