Semper Vaporo...
Thanks for the tip and I'll give it a try. But to be honest, I don't really check in on it much anymore as it's just a waste of time.
Tom
Pittsburgh, PA
TCWRIGHT973: Try my trick of clicking the Pause button to let the image finish downloading. It makes the camera SLIGHTLY more worthwhile.
Granted, it is a pain to have to do so, but at least you can see the whole image maybe 4 to 6 times per minute! (Yeah, BLEAH! )
Just don't get the idea that you can get a slightly better image by fetching the "next" image! I have fallen for that too many times (it is a bit embarrassing!)... I see a caboose coming and it is just a wee bit too far away to get a good screen shot of it, so I update the image one more time and caboose is off the other side of the screen. RATZ!
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
For me, the VMT railcam is useless. I haven't been able to see anything on it in months. Just a small strip across the top which shows nothing. I don't understand why they even use it as it seems like a waste of money to operate for no reason. Upgrade it and I might contribute, but nothing up front from me until I see what they do.
Excellent coverage, thanks!
That VMT Railcam is very frustrating... it seems when I'm just randomly checking it, the thing runs flawlessly, but if there's something coming I want to get some screen-caps of, it either freezes or re-loads so slow that I miss the shot! I emailed them about it, and they replied they were aware of the problem and started soliciting me for money to upgrade it!!
My Grandson and I have tickets for the Spencer - Barber Junction round trip on the 13th of next month, really looking forward ot it!
The excursions in Roanoke, VA last weekend (March 16) went well for me, viewing it all via the internet. I got screen capture video of almost all of the time the Steam Locomotive was in view on the Roanoke Hotel Railcam, and ONE (count'em! ONE) good image of the steamer in view of the Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) Railcam.
I am working on paring the almost 3 hours of video down to just a few minutes to post to YouTube and will link to it here when it is ready (don't hold yer breath, you'll turn blue!). Most of the video I captured is just of people milling around waiting for the train.
But just to tell a silly story about the day, I will post the only image I got from the VMT Railcam now...
The excursions ran West from Roanoke to Radford, VA, and back, in the morning, and East from Roanoke to Lynchburg, VA, and back, in the afternoon.
The Hotel Railcam worked perfectly for me all day. But, I was unable to get the VMT Railcam to work at all in the morning when the train backed from the west yard to the boarding area in the view of the Hotel Railcam, so I did not get any images from that time. Nor could I get to the VMT Railcam when it returned later that morning from the west. But when the train returned from the East in the afternoon, it pulled way past the Hotel Railcam view and I again attempted to get to the VMT Railcam.
This time the connection to the server worked, but there was a difference in the delay in the data from the two servers, (the Hotel Railcam was running about 15 seconds behind the VMT Railcam) such that by the time I got the VMT Railcam to show, the only thing I could see was the last car of the train, with the rest of it off camera to the left (West).
Then another train came along on the track closest to the VMT Railcam and blocked the view of the excursion train on the track furthest from the Railcam. It was a general freight and had many boxcars and hoppers and most of the time I could not even tell if the excursion train was still there!
The VMT Railcam is closer to the tracks and from a lower vantage point, and has a wider angle and I think a higher resolution than the Hotel Railcam, so it is a very good view, but it only updates the image once per second and often takes 5 or 10 seconds (or more!) to complete the update... and each update erases the screen and starts the download over, so often all I get to see is a small band of the top of the image and then the screen clears and I only get to see the same small band of the next image. Utterly useless that way!
So, I have learned to click the "Pause" button (the little circle with 2 vertical bars ("||") in it below the image area) when the screen clears and the image starts to download and let it complete the download (Pause only stops the request for the next image, not the download of the present image). When enough of the image is visible to tell if it will be a good one, I can decide whether to click the "Run" button (the same little circle below the image but now with an arrow head [">"] in it) to start a new image or to leave the image alone to complete the download and then maybe do a Prt Scrn to capture the image for later.
I kept doing the Pause/Run trick hoping to be able to tell whether the excursion was backing up or still sitting there. Soon I could tell it was backing up and the freight train was going to be too long to get out of the way in time to see the engine... But God blessed me with a couple flat cars in the freight at just the right moment as the Steam Locomotive #630 was almost perfectly centered on screen!
To wit:
One thing to note: Contrary to the direction of the steam from the generator on the top of the locomotive, the train was BACKING slowly at this time! There was a rain squall coming in from the west and it was blowing the steam back over the cab... I promise you, the train was backing to the east at the moment the image was captured on screen!
PTL!
See whats ya gets ta see when ya just decides to look at the Roanoke RailCam on a whim!
Barely had time to hit the Prt Scrn key!
Tried to catch it on the VMT railcam but it would not show an image... (maybe too many people watching it for the server to handle yet another watcher!).
Watched two cabeese go by this morning;
At 11:36 AM (Roanoke time -- I THINK! The clock showing in the images are CST) the pale red caboose in desperate need of a paint job and still labeled as "NW" went east on what I call track 4 (furthest from the camera). The train was black tank cars.
Then at 12:22 PM the better looking red caboose labeled with the NS "racehorse" logo went east on track 3 with covered hopper cars.
Not long after that my connection to the camera "went to lunch" and I could not get it to come back and stay (then I went to lunch) so I don't know if I missed them returning. Did anyone happen to see them return (today - 2/22/2013)?
I have been trying to figure out where they go and knowing how long it takes might improve my chances of figuring that out.
I have followed the various tracks using Google Earth and found that using the Street View feature on Norfolk Ave SE, I can see a caboose in transit on track 4 and I can follow it (somewhat) to the south, but the timing of the various photos changes along the route and it dissappears before I can tell how far it goes. Because of today's sighting on the Railcam I can see what cars they are associated with.
AH HA! Whilst I am typing this the NW caboose just came back at 02:54 PM. So it was "out and about" for 3 hours, 18 minutes. Returning it had 2 tank cars and 2 boxcars.
I still wonder about the other (NS) one, has it come back yet?
Anyway, with a 3 hour limit for the distance traveled, (and divide that by 2) and work time at the work site(s), and add in delays asking the Dispatcher for permission to change directions, etc.) I am sure the destination is not very far away. I would not expect it to travel very far anyway since returning is a shove operation.
Following the rails on Google earth presents two possible destinations for the train on track 4. I am fairly certain it follows the line to the south. One possible destination (Cycle Systems, Inc.) shows no evidence of tank cars on the property at the time of the G.E. images. The other ("Chemsolv, Inc" in an industrial park on "Industry Ave, SE") shows tank cars in the area, but requires a seperate reverse move to get there.
The other (track 3) train's destination is a bit harder to determine. For one, I don't yet have a max time away. And I can't be sure which track it takes once outside the view of the camera. Even though it starts on track 3 it could switch to the same route as the other, or it could continue to the east. I don't see any destinations along that route that show hopper cars and box cars in the present images on G.E. I suppose it could be no further than the shops just to the east of the camera scene (maybe the cars are "bad order" going east and repaired going west). (And maybe I missed the return trip while I was at lunch or trying to get the web cam back on-line on my PC).
Just asking here if anybody knows more about it.
Video seems to be stuck in a 21 second loop.
I have cleared my cache and all 3 methods of getting to the camera are showing the same sequence, so the problem is further up the line closer to the camera's server. Even the 1 second update access is just the same 21 seconds, then it stops and I have to restart it, just to see the same stop action sequence.
EDIT: It had been stuck for about an hour and now that I posted this, it is working okay again.
Supprise.....! Just checked as I've been doing each day, and wow....it's back on. Now I get to see just what they have completed since the camera went out. {When it's daylight}.
Thanks to whomever made it available again.
Quentin
Now we can see how the construction is progressing.
Norm
Hurray indeed!! I've missed it being available!
Hurray!!!!! It's up and running again! Let's hope it lasts.
Im hoping that the new camera will be just as good. Possibly sound??
The VMT railcam (" http://www.nwhs.org/cam/vmt/ ") has been updated as well. Looks like a wide angle camera has been installed and it updates faster.
Still TOO SLOW (once per 3 seconds, but that is better than the random 2 to 30 second update rate previously) and has an annoying blanking of the lower 2/3's of the scene on every update (not unlike what it did before), and the cover over the lens has streaks or scratches that make it look like it is raining hard.
It is "better" than it was, but still not as good as the Hotel cam became. Hope the new Hotel cam is at least as good as it was. Wonder what the updates will include? (or destroy? [Am I a pessimist, or what?].)
Just saw this at the "Railcam" link on the Hotel Roanoke site:
Does anyone have information when the railcam will be back up?
Agreed... nice to know what they've been working on down there.
Also looking forward to the camera being back online; have gotten
use to checking it throughout the day.
Well finally, we read of the project issue we have been watching and wondering...Thanks to all who finally broke the silence. That opening they have been working with was what I thought it was....a leftover pedestrian tunnel to gain advantage to the inside passenger tracks....and seems they are altering it or filling it completely to do the track renovation work. But thanks to those who shed some light on what has been on going there.
BIll - At last, the mystery of the secret underground access is solved. It's been kind of frustrating watching from all these many miles away and not knowing what the heck they are doing. Web cam is still down and I miss it. I usually take a peek at it a couple of times a day and have seen many interesting things. So I miss it when it's not available. Tom
Tom,
The vault like structure that you saw was a tunnel entrance and they had partially filled it with concrete. There was a tunnel that bridged the tracks several decades ago. Our speculation is the steps allowed for access to passenger trains in the center, and the tunnel had 3 entrances.
They do work strange hours. Some days they don't work at all and other days start late and others work late. They take off some Mondays and Fridays, but not all. I imagine some of the randomness is to allow for rail traffic.
I was out of the building for half the day, but I didn't see any construction while I was in. It was a windy and raw day with some occasional drizzle.
Bill
Bill - Thanks for your update. I was surprised to see them working yesterday. Maybe they were trying to get something accomplished befor the weather turns sour. When they first stated working, I watched guys going up and steps into what I would assume was some kind of an underground room or vault. Then I watched concrete trucks pumping some concrete in that area. Then yesterday they were digging that area up and putting in stone or ballast, so I guess they have no use for whatever that was. All very interesting. I just went to view the cam a few minutes ago, but it was down.
Hello,
I work in the high rise building across the tracks that is visible in the left side of the web cam. The construction visible is an upgrade project for the tracks.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/310306
Work so far has included removal of concrete passenger service platforms and light poles and has progressed to laying rock and grading. A fair amount of piping has been uncovered and salavaged. The area disturbed so far is between Jefferson Street to the other side of the I-581 bridge near the East End Shops.
Last week they were grading, working on overhead wires, and removing material from the area near the shops. They also have filled part of an old pedestrian tunnel near Jefferson Street and seem to be working on drainage pipe near the shops.
They seem to be working toward two straighter through tracks. I wish I could see some plans of the finished product. The current tracks so a lot of branching of offsetting between the web cam and the yard. Straightening this section of track makes sense.
The boiler pollution precipitator at the East Ends Shops is going to be removed to make way for a pedestrian bridge. This structure has a large sign and flag pole.
K P:
I still have no idea what the RR is doing in the area we're seeing in view of the hotel cam. It appears to me....they removed the former passenger platform of concrete...{I believe that is what it was}, and then graded the surface under that....and I watched a roller work across that surface then....but that's as far as I've seen any action.
I've not seen any answers on here as to what the RR is doing.
Those two light poles that I imagine were in use during passenger days were removed as they were in the construction area....
I even thought perhaps a new road bed was being created for another track there, but just a thought....So K P, can't provide any answers to your question....I certainly have done my share of wondering what really is happening there.....??
Hi, Quentin!
I just checked this webcam (after an absence for some time), and all that construction equipment is present. Ever hear what is going on? I can’t imagine the railroad would allow that on their property unless it was railroad related.
Take care,
K.P.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
.....Are we still void of any info regarding what is the construction crew / equipment doing there in the view of the hotel cam......? Surely, someone on here can shed a bit of light on this "project".......
Watching the streaming version this morning- giving me some trouble, but can usually get it back with a refresh. Just watched an autorack move slowly left to right and stop just beyond the crossover, and then a mixed consist going in the same direction on the far track with a HUGE Schnabel on the end.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
The two lamp posts in the passenger platform between the near and 2nd tracks are also down.
I am having lots of trouble getting to any of the 3 methods of viewing the cam... the most reliable seems to be the 1-sec update rate cam from Trains dot com. The Hotel version has not come up for several weeks... shows the site, but the windows remains black. The "good" version that opens in Windows Media Player works sometimes and just seems to hang other times. It is working right now (3:32 CDT 9/7/2012)
I haven't checked in with the Roanoke Hotel cam lately until just a few minutes ago.
Surprise....What's going on....? Appears to be construction material, equipment, etc.....Where are all the cars parked that normally park there..
Who is anticipating doing construction there....Is it the railroad....? Anyone have any info.....?
Wonder what the problem is with this cam? The museum cam works - sort of. Usually it is almost totally worthless.
I wish they would run a contiuous stream like the other one at the Hotel.
Ron W
j610 Cam is down again . It has been a long time since there have been any problems . Hopefully they will have it working again soon . RON
Cam is down again . It has been a long time since there have been any problems . Hopefully they will have it working again soon . RON
That makes more than a week. I hope it's not down for good.
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