I am with you . I wish the vmt cam was streaming ,also .But even as it is , I like it better . It is much closer and it is well lit at night . RON
.....The shadows are reaching across the areas now but the sun is not in the best position to show the webs, but I can see some of it. I believe it's all there yet.
It might really make a difference, if somehow the lens could be cleaned, and of course remove all the web material around the cam.
Sure wish the VMT cam was streaming....It's so much closer and brings in more detail. But having to reset every few min. does make it difficult to go back and forth between the two cams to try to see certain things on a passing train.
Quentin
I guess I do see some wisps of something in the upper left corner, but it ain't nuttin like it was... This morning it was a full orb web centered in the view.
I wonder if they'd object to someone with a REALLY long pole going out there and sweeping the window a bit.
If you do go clean it, uh... please... The glass also needs cleaned.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Its still there . Maybe I should go up there and clean it myself . RON
It was there about 40 minutes ago! It was quite interfering.
But it sure seems like it is gone now... I would like to have seen it happen to see how it was done.
Wonder how soon spidy will build anew?
Thursday at approximately 3:00 PM it appears the spider web is gone. I didn't think it would be a high priority item for them but it appears they have done it.
My thanks to them for providing the camera and for responding to my request.
Norm
Camera hasn`t been cleaned . Webs show up big time with the setting sun . RON
Just watched an empty unit coal train going west, but when viewed from the VMT cam, the frame rate is so slow it was difficult to tell exactly which direction the train was going when some sections of the train were in view. The cars looked pretty much all alike and they were moving at a rate that from one frame to the next they appeared to be going east instead of west... but then there would be one slightly (or more) differently colored car that would seem to be leapfrogging in the consist in the other direction. WEIRD!
Nice photo of the area, and yes, the camera is on the opposite side of the walkway at the extreme right of that image, and facing the same way as the view presented in the photo.
Here is a Google Earth image of the area with lines showing my best guess of the field of view of the two cameras.
The Green lines are the edges of the field of view for the hotel camera and the Blue lines are the VMT camera's field of view.
The large WHITE arrow points at the city pedestrian bridge (the street bridge on the left was removed since the Google Earth image was made).
The Red line is the sight angle between the two cameras.
From the VMT camera you can barely see the bottom 3/4 of the Hotel Roanoke walkway (pictured in the previous post) under the pedestrian bridge. The two cameras "might" be able to see each other just under the pedestrian bridge except the view is blocked by the support tower for the RR cantelever signal bridge (Westbound signals) just to the east (right in this image) of the pedestrian bridge.
The other day on Railpictures.net, Nicholas D'Amato posted this picture.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=344603&nseq=110
I believe that is the bridge the web cam is mounted on at the hotel.
I also think it is mounted on the opposite side of the bridge. Never been there so not sure of the location.
The passenger train might be one of the passenger train you guys saw.
Joe
Chicopee,Ma
.....Just took a look at both Roanoke cams....and both up and working just fine at this time. The lens may have been cleaned on the "hotel" cam, as I thought the pic. was pretty clear. Guess the way to tell will be when the sun is shining in it's direction some time later todayl
The other cam is clear too....A couple of engines with some tanks sitting not too far east from cam with engines facing west. I can see this "train" from both cams, so that kind of pin points where both cams are. The "overhead" bridge is also visible in both, and that helps zero in on those locations.
Could be . He has had long enough to get comfortable . RON
Maybe they removed the spider web and the spider retaliated!
Camera is down again tonight . Maybe it won`t be down for long this time . RON
I called the Roanoake Hotel this afrernoon and asked if there was anything they could do to get rid of the spider web. The woman I spoke with was quite congenial and said it would get taken care of.
Good folks in Roanoake.
Just saw the passenger train headed east at about 10 after 5 . Still trying to find out what it is and where it runs to . RON
Semper Vaporo The painted RR track is the David R. and Susan S. Goode Railwalk. It is about 3 or 4 blocks long, along the south side of the tracks along Roanoke Avenue, between the O. Winston Link museum in the old passenger depot on the east (behind the Hotel's camera) and the main buildings of the Virginia Museum of Transportation on the west (behind the VMT's camera).
The painted RR track is the David R. and Susan S. Goode Railwalk. It is about 3 or 4 blocks long, along the south side of the tracks along Roanoke Avenue, between the O. Winston Link museum in the old passenger depot on the east (behind the Hotel's camera) and the main buildings of the Virginia Museum of Transportation on the west (behind the VMT's camera).
Thanks....Lots of good stuff.
Sorry, I don't know anything about it... but somehow I missed it! I started watching early this morning and noted the traffic cones with the yellow ribbon stretched between then and figured something was up, but then I got called away and could only check in about once an hour. I saw a few people standing around and then I noticed that the wind had blown over the end cone and later all the cones were laying down and the ribbon was billowing across the near track. Then later the cones were all standing up again and the spectators were gone. Never did see the train.
I did see a passenger train last week and it was very long. I counted about 15 or 16 cars as it was moving forward and stopped but I didn't see the engines to know how long it really was,
I wonder, are these trains for viewing "Fall Foliage"?
Earlier this evening i saw a passenger train stopped in front of the link museum. Does anyone have any information on this train ? RON
There are several displays and monuments with plaques for the walking tourist. If you watch the scene from the Hotel's camera you will see lots of pedestrians walking along that side of the street, stopping to read the various plaques.
Use Google Earth's Street View function to look at that street. It is unfortunate that Google blurred the text in that area, but you can make out a couple of sets of steam locomotive driver's with plaques and a passenger shed with different types of RR signal lights on each end. About the middle of it is the focal point of the Railwalk at the monument that names the Railwalk (with the 3 Diesel Crankshafts and waterfall/pool) and the stone outline of Virginia showing the N&W routing in the state.
Keep going west on Street View and after you round the corner to the south, look "up" at the Jupiter Missle standing on the sidewalk! (don't blind yerself looking at the sun perched on the tip of the rocket!! Or go a few camera scenes farther south and then turn around and look up.)
Well, the VMT cam will show the same stuff on the current video feed from trains.com, so when you see a train, check out the VMT one then.
The right side of the picture on the VMT Rail Cam shows what looks like a painted railroad track Icon.....might that be an identity of a rail trail....?
That cam does have a nice clear pic. and close to the tracks. Have not seen a train on it just yet....But we're going to take a look right now. Just installed it in my "Favorites".
Edit: And as I turned back to it...bingo: A double stack headed east.
Like the new vmt rail cam much better than the hotel one . Much closer to the tracks and clearer picture . Also, the area is well lit after dark . RON
Thanks for the update on the new camera. I wish it was a little faster but hey, at least we are getting more of these around the rails.
Thanks for the link. I see the camera is located immediately out of view from the far end of the featured camera. Can we get trains.com to officially post it? I know people won't be excited about the whole frame rate issue, but the Rochelle cam started off the same, and it turned out fine. Besides, anyone watching a live train will know to refresh the other cam at that time and not have to waste time doing so between the action. Printscreen is good for saving snaps from that one, so those of you who do not have Snipping Tool can use that camera to grab snaps.
BTW, for those who want to who have Snipping Tool ready, you can probably put some command lines into the startup process of your computer (if you are admins or have rights), so that the site is logged in automatically, the pages with the webcams load, and Snipping Tool is autoloaded, all on bootup. This assumes you are always logged into the Internet (if not, perhaps having Snippign Tool load is the only thing to do).
EDIT-That other cam angle does not like bandwidth demands very much. Clearly, not more than a few people can be viewing it at once, or it stalls heavily between updated frames (I got nearly a minute on that last train pass). What a shame.
Refer to my post from the 21st of Oct above (Top of this page of the thread... unless this post causes a new page to start!) Note the photo of the "smoke" coming from the top of the monument of the David R and Susan S Goode Railwalk.
Here is a second image I took of it back then:
Over the next week I kept watch of that place several times per day to see if the smoke appeared again. It didn't!
Curiosity got the better of me and I called the Virginia Museum of Transportation to ask if the smoke was a problem or if anyone knew anything about it. I got an answering machine so I just left a too short explanation of what I had seen and asked if they knew anything about it. I left my phone number, not really expecting a reply... (I figured they'd be thinkin' "Some 'weirdo' says our stone monument is on fire!" and then ignore me.)
Well, today I got a call from the Director of the Museum, Bev Fitzpatrick, asking for more information about what I saw. He described the monument a bit better than I could determine from the Webcam (seeing the back of it) or via Google Earth and Street View (which has deliberately blurry images). It has a corrugated metal back wall that water runs down to a reflecting pool that extends to the west around the adjacent stone outline of the state of Virginia showing the N & W routes.
Fortunately, he knew of no fire associated with the monument, but did offer, maybe in jest, that maybe someone put some dry-ice in the pool at the top where the water cascades down the corrugated metal front. So, unfortunately, no good explanation for what I saw.
BUT! Ta Da... he told me of a new railcam that the museum has set up recently and told me the URL:
Take a look at:
http://www.nwhs.org/cam/vmt/
This camera is facing East (the opposite direction of the one at the hotel) but is west of the hotel, looking back at the location of the Hotel's camera several blocks away.
The video stream is very slow, updating once every 2 to 3 seconds, but it is full color all the time (so far as I can tell). It is 900x450 resolution and at night the security lights in the area spill over to the tracks so the trains are well illuminated at night. (Edit: I screwed up... the resolution is 770x383.)
The link has a 4 minute time-out and disconnects after that time. You will have to click the small blue circle "Play" button (">") to get it to continue for another 4 minutes.
Distance focus is not too good, especially at night as the headlights of an oncoming train are just a large blurry white spot, but close up trains are clear and the engine (and some car numbers) are easily read.
I am still studying the things in the background, trying to figure out just where some of them are. I see a large (and blurry) green light that seems to be blinking at some rate that does not match the frame rate of the camera so the blinking is quite sporadic... bright in one frame, off in the next 2 or 3, then maybe dim in one and then off again for a couple and then bright again. I don't know if the blinking is a permanent thing or if it is a RR signal showing some specific aspect by blinking at this moment.
Here is a screen shot of the two webcam images side-by-side on my screen. The VMT cam is on the left in the Browser window and the Hotel cam is on the right in the Media Player window. (The time display above the Media Player window is a StopWatch program I wrote, set to count down 4 minutes and then play a sound to alert me that the camera has probably disconnected so I can restart it... I watched it for 30 minutes before I realized that nothing was happening because it had disconnected! I thought it odd that there was no street traffic, and then I realized the truck on the corner had been there at the Stop-sign an awfully long time!
The VMT image seems to be mostly B&W in this shot, but there is some green on the right background... dunno why the rest is so bland... just dark I guess.
Anyway, we now have a second camera to watch trains on... I want to get some images of the cabeese that traverse that area.
The bug must be way too big...it blacked out the whole camera! We're all gonna die! Ahhh!
Well, I am glad I kept that Snipping tool handy. I've saved a good few interesting shots on different days.
I found it too time consuming to reach the webcam via either method, so I saved a direct link in my favourites menu to get to it.
http://128.173.197.94:443/RRCmov
Seems to work okay for me.
I have noticed that if I maintain the connection for a couple of hours, it will sometimes disconnect (screen goes black) and then it will reconnect. But, sometimes it will not reconnect and I have to click the Stop button and then click the Play button again. If that doesn't fix it, I have to terminate Media Player and re-click the Favourites link.
Today I see Spidey has strung some more strings, and the big black bug is still mugging for the camera and "leaving li'l footie prints AAAALLLLL over muh desert" err, I mean, window. Apparently it is too big for Spidey to take on.
And no smoke from the top of the monument. I am still wondering about that smoke!
I have been having trouble getting the camera to come up on the trains web site. It will only work from the hotels web site. Anyone else having the same problem?
I think the spider web has been blown away (or possibly someone did remove it... THANKS!).
I am guessing that the camera is "inside" the covered/enclosed walkway over the street and tracks. I then assume the spider web was "outside" the window the camera looks through. Cleaning the web away would require a very long swab of some sort... maybe as long as 20 to 30 ft to reach to the top of the walkway wall of windows.
The window also has many smudges on it that ruin the view when the sun is nearly in line with the camera. I don't think the smudges could be cleaned from the ground and would require a bonefide "window washer" to get up there to clean it. That might be an expense the hotel would balk at.
I didn't get to look at the monument today to see if it was smoking... Did anybody else look?
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