It seems like there is no specific time for the webcam to go from color to black & white. The vmt cam has been messing up lately,but maybe it is due to the bad weather. Not much traffic today or at least not at the times i chose to view the cams. RON
kolechovski I didn't realize Poor Mountain was so far back.
I didn't realize Poor Mountain was so far back.
I didn't either until the question about the dancing lights was asked. I am one who loves to solve a puzzle and now have the time to do so. I used the FCC's website to locate towers in the Roanoke area, then used Google Earth to pinpoint them. Poor Mountain is an 'antenna farm'. Several stations have their antennas located there.
From an engineering standpoint it makes sense. Poor Mountain's elevation is much higher than the surrounding territory. That means stations can broadcast over the same area with shorter, and less expensive, towers To cover the same area from lower ground would likely require a 2,000 ft tower.
The fact they can be viewed at night reflects the high standards of tower lighting required by the FAA. They would be white strobes during daylight but are red at night. Of course we can't tell that when the camera in in the B/W mode.
Norm
Yes the VMT cam keeps blanking out on me. And the hotel cam has been staying color for longer hours than before. I thought it went to B&W based on the brightness of the scene, but I have seen it change when the sun was just going down and now is it still color a couple of hours after sundown.
I did see a lot of the tail end of several trains... I just didn't connect soon enough to see the engines.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Same here . It seems every time i log on , i am just a little too late . Santa comes to the link museum saturday on a caboose . RON
It stayed in beautiful color for all the last time I was on...I also thought it had been daylight triggered. maybe they found out we dislike it and turned off the feature. I also saw a UP engien this morning,a long with a very interesting high nose jobby. Lotsa good stuff will parade by...I just know it.
Well the rain finally stopped and the sun is back out. Back to clear cam views again . VMT cam is still off and on RON
The live feed cam has been dropping quite a bit, too. i think with word of recent foreign power getting around, there's more demand for the feed and more bandwidth getting used.
You may be right . That makes sense as more and more people are finding out about the vmt cam. I would really like to see a live streaming cam at the museum , but what we have is better than nothing. . RON
Should start to see some more action as it gets closer to the holidays . My daughter and son-in-law work for the post office and the holiday shipping has already kicked in , should be an increase in rail freight also. RON
Has Santa arrived yet or did I miss the train. It's 4:55pm est
Joe
I was wrong . Santa arrives saturday evening 4:30 til 8:00 pm. RON
I haven`t been able to load the hotel cam at all today . Every time i try,a window pops up trying to get me to install something called wmv-9 vcm rtw. Has anyone else had this problem. I have never had a problem loading it before . I have mozilla firefox. If i go to it in internet explorer , it loads but very slowly . It is snowing very hard in roanoke right now . perfect for santas arrival at 4:30. RON
.....Yes, it's snowing in Roanoke now. Looks like a real wet snow as it's sticking to nowhere except the coal was white on a passing EB train just a few min. ago.
We too have snow here in Muncie today...Right now it appears to be maybe 2.5" so far....It's to let up this evening, an as I just peeked out my window here it's pretty light now. 31.1 degrees here.
Web site might have loaded a bit slow...but part of it might have been this computer, as i happen to be dealing with a slow running unit here now.
Quentin
Just saw santa come in at 5:35 riding on the back of a caboose pulled by three engines. Still snowing in roanoke. RON
Not too much action today , at least when i was watching. I have seen a lot of foreign power lately. RON
Saw a train late last night that was lead by 3 Diesels and expected to see a long consist... but is was only about dozen double bottom covered hoppers. That got me to wondering... around here in the deepest, darkest Midwest, a unit train of hoppers is probably soy beans, corn or wheat; what kinds of product might have been in those hoppers in Virginia?
Just saw a train with the lead unit marked HLCX. Who does that belong to . I don`t know about virginia , but there are a lot of soybeans grown here in north carolina . RON
HLCX is Helms Leasing.
Hoppers in Va could be corn, soybeans, wheat, peanuts plus a bunch of other stuff
Tom
COAST LINE FOREVER
It is better to dwell in the corner of a roof than to share a house with a contentious woman! (Solomon)
A contentious woman is like a constant dripping! (Solomon)
A lot of non NS power lately. Traffic seems to be heavier lately , also. RON
NS has leased a sizable number of locomotives from UP. They can be identified by a white patch under their road number that says "NS LEASE".
So that`s why they are everywhere. Still looks strange seeing them this far east . RON
Haven't had time to view either cam much in the last couple of days, but just now checked the hotel cam and saw a caboose on the lead in a reverse move headed west, so I quickly started the VMT cam and started the Magnifier app in Windows. Captured an image of another caboose; not sure if this is just a 2nd one or maybe a 3rd.
VMT cam hasn`t been working too well for me lately . Sometimes it takes several minutes for it to show any movement . Probably my computer . RON
You must have moved rather fast....Good catch.
Semper, your last picture won't blow up to full size.
BTW, this last week, there was a BN unit on the lead of a coal train into Shelocta again. I don't know if it was the same one that I saw last time, but it had the same paint scheme. Has anyone seen BNSF power on any of the trains?
kolechovski Semper, your last picture won't blow up to full size.
Oops! Sorry about that.
Actually it will blow up to the full size.. but the full size is exactly what you see! I had been shrinking some photos for another project and accidently left the default size selection at that really small size, instead of what I usually use. My original size is 1600x900, but I reduce that to 640x480 for posting.I'll go see if I can replace the image with a bigger copy... might break the posting... if I do I will just add another post below this one. (HHHmmmm Seems to have worked!)
Just saw a really long freight go through heading west. It had more MOW equipment than i have ever seen on one train . RON
Yep, I love the rail cam. I just leave it running on my monitor all night, kinda like a nightlight. But yea, I have noticed a lot of NS traffic too. I wish there were more of these cameras nationwide. Props to who ever maintains this camera.
It is great , especially the hotel cam . The museum cam leaves a lot to be desired , although it is closer to the tracks . RON
Don`t know what is up , but several men with flashlights have been checking one of the autoracks for quite some time now .I hope no one got hurt . RON
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