Anyway, where can I get one, if anyone knows, please reply!

Thanks

A train going sixty miles per hour goes a mile in one minute. A train going thirty miles per hour goes a mile in two minutes. A train going two miles per minutes is going 120 mph. You can combine this with Sheriff's pole info, as well.

I remember riding the National Limited from St Louis to New York many years ago. I used to stand in the vestibule between cars, look out the window and time the miles with my watch.

Advance apologies for writing this on the excel for dummies level.
To calculate your own speed table in excel, set your speeds in one column, let us say column B. To be lazy, if you enter 1 in cell B3, for example, then put =B3+1 in cell B4, then copy and paste down as many rows as you want. Then in cell C3 enter =3600/B3 Then copy and paste down as many rows as you have numbers in column B. Write some headings above this so that you can remember what each column means. Since this becomes long and skinny, you can maybe go 1 through 40 in columns B and C, 41 through 80 in D and E and 81 through 120 in columns F and G. Do format number, go to number and set the number of decimal places you want to see. When you do this, you will see very large numbers of seconds for low speeds.

You can make the numbers easier to understand if you make it in minutes and seconds for the lower speeds. It has one more step in the process. Make three column heading, say in B2, write speed, in C2 write minutes, in D2 write seconds. Again, in B3 write 1, in B4 write =B3+1 Go to D3 and write =3600/B3-c3*60 then copy D3 to D4. Black B4 C4 D4 and copy row into B5 and as far down as you want to go. In C3 write 60 You will see D3 go to 0 In C4 write 30 and you will see D4 go to 0 You can continue on down guessing minutes or you can have excel calculate them and then go back and fill in with whole numbers. If you guess the minute and the number in column D goes negative, then use a smaller number in column C until the number in column D goes positive. If the number in column D is greater than 60 use a larger number in column C until the number in column D goes below 60. Again, you can fold the table and set a format on the seconds column. Since the minutes column must be exact minutes there is no need to set a number format on the minutes.

OK, I know I wrote this on an elementary school level, but since I do not know who all will read this, I though it better to leave no step out rather than omit what I think is obvious that might not be obvious to some of the readers.

What's an "Excel"?

Most, if not all, steam locomotives were delivered without speedometrs. The one time I was in the cab of one was at Hervey, PQ during August 1956; I did not see one about. The CN fireman (fluent in English) said you just look at the poles to tell how fast you are going.

GPS measures speed by calculating how long it took to go from the last lat/long location to the current one, and what the (straight line) distance is. That could introduce errors on track with many curves, especially at high speeds.

Mileposts are, for a variety of reasons, frequently more or less than a mile apart. On the NEC there are some really short miles due to line relocations (say 4000 feet or less). Timing *those* mileposts will make you think you're going really fast.

2. What about defect detectors? I'm aware they can't always count axles very well ;-) but how accurate are their speedos? And what speed - the front, rear, or average of the train, since it could be slowing down or speeding up as it passes.

President Clinton ordered that selective availability be discontinued as a policy, so it's not done anymore.

Click on "I accept", then select one of the timetables (eg Chicago), then the link at the top of the page. On the last page is the speed chart you're looking for.

Better just email me. the attempt to copy in did not work well.

m = minutes
s = seconds