Re: GPS Units and Railfans

[Rolfe Bozier <rolfeb@triode.net.au>]

trainboy@ozemail.com.au wrote:
> 
> In article <368a3437.0@139.134.5.33>,
>   "John Wayman" <trecker@bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Are there any railfans out there using a GPS (Global Positioning System)
> > unit to record train journeys, station locations on existing and closed
> > lines, great line side photo locations, etc.?
> >
> > I would like to know how useful they are,
> 
> They are good for chasing trains.  You can make a waypoint at an important
> turnoff (Say the Wambool turnoff) and the GPS will alert you when you are 2
> minutes away.  Makes finding turnoffs at night easy.  Also makes things easy
> if you have a topographic map and you know where you want to be.  In the
> future, popular hackspots may be published as lat/long.

I've been thinking about picking up a GPS receiver at some stage for recording
rail locations etc.  The main thing to bear in mind is that civilian receivers
are only accurate to around 100m.  That may be fine if you're out in the middle
of the countryside, but not much use for recording the details within a yard,
for example.  The other thing you want to make sure of is that the unit will
give you coordinates which are compatible with the maps you are using.  Most
recent maps should be either in UTM/AGD84 or lat/long, which should be no
problem.

If you're interested in general information on GPS, a couple of useful sites
are:

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps.html
http://deathstar.rutgers.edu/geom_class/GPS/GPS.html

Various manufacturers (e.g. Magellan, Garmin) will have details on their web
sites.

I'm in the process of putting together a gazetteer of NSW railway locations, in
lat/long coordinates.  If anyone is interested, let me know.  Eventually it'll
be available along with some other data over the web.

See ya,
Rolfe

-- 
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