Suitable GPS device

[rail-britain]

I am looking for a GPS device in order to view train speed on my trips
Ideally it should be small, but with a large display that is easy to read and view
Speed should be displayed to one decimal place in mph
Distance travelled would also be useful
The power source should be AA batteries, that will last at least 24 hours

Recommendations welcome

It is something I really should have purchased for my trip last year...

 

[Pumbaa]

Don't know - I use a lot of Garmin stuff but not for measuring speed on rail. I'm not sure how well it will cope either. With any standard GPS you'd get a better height change value on your journey than you would speed!

 

[rail-britain]

I've seen a few people use them and they tend to update the speed at intervals of about 10 seconds
I am more after an inidication of speed rather than precise

 

[flymo]

Would the signal be sufficient enough to measure inside the carriage or would you need to be right up against the window to get a decent reading? Just curious really.

As an aside, I still remember using the ¼ mile markers, or even the mile markers themselves, and a stopwatch to measure speed. I know there are still some of these markers still around, perhaps not as many as there used to be, but do they get maintained to any degree, i.e. repainted, cleaned etc?.

 

[At_traction]

I am looking for a GPS device in order to view train speed on my trips
Ideally it should be small, but with a large display that is easy to read and view
Speed should be displayed to one decimal place in mph
Distance travelled would also be useful
The power source should be AA batteries, that will last at least 24 hours

Recommendations welcome

There is a rather nice map available for the UK and Ireland for Garmin receivers, based on OpenStreetMap's free source map. The piece de resistance is, however, the terrain contouring add-on that the webmaster at http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm has added to this base map as an optional upload. As you can see on the website, the map renders itself pretty well on various Garmin platforms.

I myself have a GPSmap 60Cx (picture) colour unit that I got for motorcycling, but the receiver works just as well on trains (or aeroplanes!) and being an "outdoors" GPS unit, is also sturdy as h*ll. My GPS shows only whole mph/kph values, although I'm not certain why you'd need a decimal measuring, given that the GPS measurement itself may not be in reality that accurate anyway. The height in 3D is given as well as profile and data tables of speeds, elevations etc. in the accompanying MapSource program. The batteries/accus last surprisingly long, with my receiver being on for 9 hours and the battery bar going down from 4 bars to three with (many years old) recharged accus.

Here's a review from the net (for a bit different subversion).

You should check out your needs and offers available (and different manufacturers if you like) but I myself am happy with my Garmin and the free map available online. There is also one commercially available from Garmin, but I guess the OpenStreetMap thingy might be just as useful (at least) for this purpose.

It is something I really should have purchased for my trip last year...

It lets you keep on the map, so to say.

What I liked most, though, was the contour data that let me identify peaks and their heights as I recently travelled in the Lower Scotland, especially during the rolling low-level dash in the valleys along A74 down the WCML. Yeehaa.

Would the signal be sufficient enough to measure inside the carriage or would you need to be right up against the window to get a decent reading? Just curious really.

I myself have sat next to the window, so that may help as opposed to sitting on an aisle, but, on the other hand, the unit also gets signal on the window seat of an aeroplane, with not too large a window and within the cage of the aircraft "tube".

 

[AutoKratz]

I am looking for a GPS device in order to view train speed on my trips
Ideally it should be small, but with a large display that is easy to read and view
Speed should be displayed to one decimal place in mph
Distance travelled would also be useful
The power source should be AA batteries, that will last at least 24 hours

Recommendations welcome

It is something I really should have purchased for my trip last year...

If you have a BlackBerry with the Maps app installed you view your current speed in mph and the direction you're travelling in directly through the app using the devices integral GPS. Makes for an interesting journey

 

[jon0844]

I have an app for my Android phone that lets me select the GPS accuracy level, which should prevent spikes where you get misreadings.

The more accuracy you request, the more chance of NO reading at certain times when it can't measure the speed. Less accuracy and you'll get spikes - but can still get a fairly good average.

You can tell the spikes quite obviously (like when I drove at 999km/h recently!) and as long as you measure over a reasonable distance you can still get an average - and see if a driver is going a little faster than allowed!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Garmin Foretrex 101.

Takes a pair of AAA batteries, not AA though. Gives about 15 hours per set of batteries, it's wrist worn and updates more or less continuously, not every 10 seconds. The accuracy is about 1%.

 

[Daimler]

These days, you might as well get a phone which contains a GPS receiver - the free Google supplied app on Android phones (MyTracks) not only maps your progress, but also gives you a whole host of information - speed and distance, obviously, but also average speed (moving/total), height, height gain, max speed, and so on - it really does work beautifully!

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't read your post properly - you mentioned something powered by AA batteries, which a phone obviously isn't! When I use my phone for timing, I usually take along the charger and plug it in on board to get round the problem of less-than-brilliant battery life when using the GPS.