North v Chainage

ok this point caused a good discussion in the office with different people view on it.

so what take priority the north point or the chanaing?

This came about as i was working on someones drawing of a 3k stretch of a westbound road. the length ment that it would cover 2 sheets. they set the drawing up with north pointing up and the chainage following traffic flow, this ment that reading the drawing left to right ment you start at chainage 3000

so i amended the drawing so north was down so you read from 0

so whats everyones view on this should:

north always point up (or with in 90degrees of up)

or

the chainage read from 0 meaning that north is pointing down

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just intrested to see what others think

Ideally, north should point upwards, and chainage should read from left to right.

But, in the situation you described above, the flow of traffic should be horizontal on the page, with 0 chainage on the left hand side, with north pointing to wherever it points to. A northpoint is only a helpful indicator, whereas chainage will be measured much more accurately and should take a higher precedence, in this instance.

exacly as i thought good not just me lol

I was taught (civil engineering) that north should either be pointing straight up or to the right. Then I went to work for the company I'm at now and things went topsy-turvy. Seems everyone has this idea of the site and how the buildings are laid out. To make our drawings correspond with this concept North ended up pointing down. That's how the "Engineering Manager" wanted it and it has been that way ever since. No one inside the company questions it. The only time it comes up in discussion is if we get an outside contractor in who has a civil background or one of the utility companies come on site to check something. Then somebody is going to have to turn their drawing upsidedown! LOL