[LEAPSECS] No leapseconds on trains

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Ian Batten said:

>>> This wasn't the timetable. Its main purpose, as I understood it, was to provide a record of where trains were, or where the dispatchers thought they were, in the event of an accident.



>> Hmm, they may well be logging each track circuit transition

> Track circuits?  In manually-signalled USA?


The USA had track circuits well before the UK. Read Rolt. I thought it was
fairly usual to track circuit at least sections of lines - for example, in
remote areas signals were approach-lit to save battery life, so that
implies several TCs in rear of the signal.


> Anyway, the average freight train in the USA is 6500 feet long (ie substantially over a mile) and travels at an average of around 20mph, or at most 30mph.  So it takes around two minutes to pass a point.  Timing that to a precision of a second seems a excessive.


True.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
Web: http://www.davros.org  |   - Henry Spencer
Mobile: +44 7973 377646