Speedometers in steamengines

in America, at the time. they didn't.
telegraph lines were next to the track and each pole was a certain distance apart. (I think 40 ft)
engineers would count how many they passed in ___ seconds and use that to approximate their speed.

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>>1061707
Well, in Canadian Pacific's case the answer is No. The crew timed between mileposts to determine that, and I have been told that counting the number of poles over a given time (ex: 1 min) gives a ballpark figure, the main drawback being that the poles may not be evenly spaced due to terrain etc.

Also heard some may count the number of times the steam exhausts out of the cylinder on one side during a given period to determine speed as well. But that would be different for all of the diffrrent wheel diameters.

>>1061726
>Also heard some may count the number of times the steam exhausts out of the cylinder on one side during a given period to determine speed as well
I.e. they jus listened to approximate speed; you can do this in a car to within a couple mphs desu

They did not. Even steam engines as late as the early 20th Century did not have speedometers.

>>1061707
Nope. In Japan some guy came in during the 1920's and made people learn how to keep track of things based on scenery alone so timing went from always being late to always being on time.

They still practice this today and conductors can still tell the speed to the kilometre by vision alone.