While in Portland for a morning of shopping and exploring, I couldn’t help searching for a few local benchmarks. J 11 well marked with a painted triangle and the designation is situated according to the description, and was easy to find. The disk itself appears to be in good condition, though a small amount of the concrete under the disk has come loose.
While I was photographing the mark, I heard a train approaching and for a moment considered that I might be in its path. But I soon spotted it moving along another set of tracks across the street. The train added a neat touch to this railroad benchmark recovery.
The second mark was a bit more interesting. I had no reason to expect KV2878 to be anything other than a straightforward find. I was surprised, therefore, by the strange situation I came across at the bridge. A concrete handicapped access ramp has been built atop the flat recessed area that once held the benchmark disk. While it may still exist, it is not currently accessible.
I did, however, spot a mark several meters down below set into the bridge abutment. Further inspection showed this to be stamped L 362 RESET 2002, which I assume is the reset referred to by PennDOT in their 2003 recovery. But no datasheet exists for this reset mark. Without current data, the mark cannot be used nor can updates be submitted to NGS. Also strange is that it appears (from the logs of geocachers and PennDOT’s recovery note) both the reset mark and the original mark were in place concurrently, for at least several months.
The reset disk is in good condition with legible stamping. The WAAS-corrected coordinates I provided are for the reset mark.