NEW WEBCAM

[Glen Ellyn]

I have an idea everybody. Wouldn't it be cool to have a webcam at West Chicago Illinois so that you can see what is happening at the junction of the Elgin Joliet & Eastern, and Union Pacific? I think it would cool. What about you?

[FThunder11]

Good Idea, nice pics

[wcfan4ever]

It would be cool but I dont think something like that is going to happen. There are so many spots that webcams could be placed but it is unlikely that spot would be choosen because of the cam at Rochelle. I know a few years ago, there was a cam in downtown Chicago from the 20th Century Railroad Club?? but I dont know what happened to it.

[Glen Ellyn]

Thank you and thank you FThunder11.Those pictures are from West Chicago actually.

That is a picture that I took in October of 2003 of an EJ&E train crossing over the Union Pacific.



This is a picture of another EJ&E train in the summer of 03.



This picture of a patched C&NW sort of shows how the camera could be placed. What I was thinking was to put it to the right where their is a sidewalk. You could have the camera facing east on the Union Pacific railroad, but have tre crossing signal of the EJ&E be in the display.


Above when I said put the camera to the left, by the sidewalk, this picture of HELM Corperated engine also displays the sidewalk to the right, in this case.

[Junctionfan]

I wouldn't mind seeing Dolton Junction either. UP, CSX and IHB trains in the same area that is almost as busy as Fostoria. I also think Amtrak goes through too.

[Glen Ellyn]

Good idea Junctionfan. I have not been their, and I understand the neighbor hood isn't top notch (no offense) but putting a webcam their would be cool too.! [:)]

[halifaxcn]

Great idea! West Chicgao is one of my fav spots when visiting Chicago.
Only problem I see is that its the same trains heading to Rochelle on UP.

I agree that Dolton would be great site to

Regards

[JoeKoh]

Fostoria would be nice however how do you catch all the action? you could be focused on ns and have a csx train go south of the B&O willard line?just alot of action to keep track of. Now Deshler you have a more central location. that could work better.
stay safe
Joe

[Glen Ellyn]

Yes, and yes to both halifaxcn, and
JoeKoh, The webcam in West Chicago would be for the EJ&E, Dolton would be cool to see, because of all the different railroad lines.

[Glen Ellyn]

Alright, here is another idea about the webcam in Rochelle. How about if instead of a camera, it could act like a tape recorder, and not take pictures, but have non-stop footage. Like a video tape. Maybe, the people who installed the origional camera could make the new camera smart enough to take a photo everyso ofter, thus still having the previous photo section in the webcam area.

[tree68]

As nice as it would be to have streaming video at Rochelle, only one thing stands in the way - Cash Money. Bandwidth is not cheap. Trains recently polled its readers on whether they would like several options. I don't remember what they were, but there were tradeoffs for each. (like, streaming video but less users at any one time, or something like that).

Controllable webcams are nice, too, but they aren't exactly cheap either.

If you'd like an idea of what it would cost for a webcam, do a little research on-line. Check out webcams (and don't forget the weatherproof enclosure). The controllable cam at Ft Madison, IA has a link to the company that sells that particular package.

As for getting the bandwidth, basic residential cable modem service (RoadRunner for Time Warner customers) is around $40 a month. If you were forced to get a commercial cable modem account it would be closer to $70, IIRC. A dedicated T1 line can run upwards of $1000 a month... Takes a lot of sponsors to maintain something like that.

If you can coordinate some sponsors, and a place to mount a camera, have at it!

[Glen Ellyn]

So I see.