Benchmarks gone...

[+TEAM 360]

0 for 3 benchmarks today, and they were all supposed to be within 30 feet of railroad tracks, but the land along both sides of the tracks had been plowed up, and I could not find any trace of the listed benchmarks. There were broken up pieces of concrete mixed in with the dirt, some with flat sides (like poured pieces). I took pictures of the sites where the marks were supposed to be, showing the areas with these deep plowrows. Do I even bother to log these? Is NOT finding benchmarks like this commonplace?

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Yes, unfortunately it is commonplace. I figure that around here, half of the benchmarks in the database are actually gone.

 

I think most railroad-associated marks have scaled coordinates, so you have to find them via the landmarks instead of the coordinates. If you figure you've done a good job of finding the location and the mark is very likely gone because of re-landscaping, etc., then log as "Couldn't find it". Then, when you or someone else brings up a zipcode or coordinate search, these benchmarks are marked as 'could not finds' and you and others can concentrate on the ones we haven't visited yet.

[+TEAM 360]

Thanks. I have to say, though, I did look everywhere, but no luck. I am gonna stay away from railroad grades now.

[+patw]

I would add that when reporting a benchmark as <not found> that is helpful to include a comment describing your experience and the apparent reason you could not find. Area photos are also very helpful to others who may still want to go after the particular mark. (There are some -- yea, even on this forum -- who delight in the added challenge of hunting down a previously <not found> mark, especially if it was reported NF by the NGS or USPSQDN.

 

patrick & shirley

[+WaldenRun]

I have had a tough time when with disks set in the ground near RR tracks. In fact the NGS database has very few recoveries on marks of that type. I have more luck when they were set in structures near the tracks.

 

"Besides physical caches, we have VIRTUal and VIRTUeless."

[Z15]

I have found BM's (working for DOT) along RR tracks buried as much as 2 feet. Can be extremely hard to find. RR's are always doing work and many time the grades are rebuilt and the terrain changes buring or destroying the marks. We had a sounding rod (used for soil studies) and drove that into the ground a t the suspect locations. Sometimes were were lucky and often we were not. On occasion GPS helped put us in the ballpark but it was of no use finding the mark, the decription was the only thing that could help. There are some out there I know probably exist but I was tiring of digging or the references no longer existed and where to dig was up in the air.