On the Hungarian rail lines on every 100 meters one can find milestones on the right and then on the left side of the railway periodically. This means, that if you measure the time elapsed between two milestones (200m) you can determine the speed of the train with rather good precision.
In the Gigant Club, from the beginnings several speed measurements were performed. In the first time, with a simple watch, but this method gives poor precision. The magic numbers were: 30,36,40,45 and 60 sec. according to the speed of 120,100,90,80 and 60 km/h, when we counted a half minute average.
This method followed by a calculator program for a Canon F-73P. This program helped us to count the actual speed during the measurements. The disadvantage of this method was that it needed two persons: one for the stopper and one for the calculator.
Last year Imre purchased a SHARP PC-E220 computer. This is now an ideal measurement tool. We developed a special measurement and registration program. This program stores the time of every milestone by pressing just the ENTER key. One can add acceleration, brake etc. timestamps or textual remarks to the data. After the measurement session (When we arrive home...) all the data are loaded into a PC for further processing by a C and a spreadsheet program (like Quattro for Windows).
These diagram contain data for 3 engines with closely the same load (~360t>.
The new measurement computer have made us possible to register the speed continously during the trip. This diagram can be interpreted same way as the registrated data of a tachograf.
If you have some questions, problems, suggestions or additions,
please contact the V63 Gigant Club.