Thanks. I was wondering about those antennas...if you can figure out what angle they are from the street (maybe figuring out what angle the webcam itself is at may help), could an overhead map help any? Are the antennas likely to show up on their own, or perhaps have posed a shadow that will show them if are are scrolling in the exact direction they are in? I'd assume them to be within the city, so I'd think it wouldn't take too long to find them with an overhead map (especially if it was sunny). Unfortunately, I don't remember the URLs of the overhead maps (aerial photos), so I can't check myself.
The source of world-wide aerial photos that I use is "Google Earth", IF you have a highspeed internet connection (i.e.: anything other than "dial-up") I heartily recommend you install their program. Go to "GoogleEarth.com" and click on the "Download" button that page presents. This will install a program on your PC and a desktop Icon for running the program. Once you run it you will be totally amazed at what you can see and how easy it is to work. Use the scroll wheel in the mouse to zoom in and out and click and drag the mouse to pan around on the surface. If you have any dead-reconing skills at all you hardly need the search function it has, but if not, just click in the text box in the upper end of the left column control area and type the name of a city or just about anything you can think of and it will present a list of possibles if you are not specific enough, click on one of them and it will go there on the photos/map. If you are specific enough, it will take you right there... like type, "Roanoke, VA" and you will be right above the city!
Some of the aerial photos are so sharp you can almost read license plates on cars and trucks. (Other areas are not that good, but many are!)
There are other network services that provide the same functionality, but since I only use Google Earth, I cannot attest to their worth... but I am sure there are people that love them as much as I lke Google Earth.
There is also a feature ("Street View") that you can turn on that will show you actual photographs of the roads and streets that they have driven down with a camera mounted on the top, taking 360degree views as they drive around. Not all streets have been photographed, but many, many have, especially the major cities. Some of the photos have been deliberately blurred (and others not so much blurrred) which inhibits some of the usefulness of Street View, but in general they are pretty nice too. (They blurred the photos because some people sued over privacy issues because they were walking into a porn shop when the car drove by and their spouse recognized them on Google Earth!) Apparenly they run the photos through a photo "anti-enhancement" program that recognized faces and text so as to render the face and words unrecognizable.
I use Google Earth and Street View all the time.
I have a list of over 400 Railroad Roundhouses and Turntables (either sill in use or just a barely discernable footprint on the ground) that I found just by following rail lines all over the world (most in the U.S. but a few in other countries).
I can see my own backyard from the air and can make out my car parked there. Street View also has a couple of nice views of the front of my house.
My local bank branch closed and consolidated with a branch in another city (Yes, they are nincompoops!) which I am not very familiar with. So I used Google Earth to find the bank, then used Street View to see where to make turns to get there so I could make my house payment. Worked REALLY WELL!
Also in Google Earth, people have drawn 3-D images of some of major buildings and uploaded them to Google. If you turn on that feature it will show those buildings in 3-D on the aerial photos so you can see the sides of them. The Wachovia building in Roanoke is one that someone did. You can see that building in the Hotel RailCam view on the upper left (you might see FedEx, UPS and USPS making deliveries to it while watching the Hotel RailCam).
Google Earth keeps updating the photos, but the old ones are still available... they have even found really old aerial photos of some places so you can see the way things were in the 1950's!!!!
I find it totally amazing how easy Google Earth is to operate and the more I play with it, the more things I find it can do. I really do recommend installing it, just be warned, it can consume all of your time, spare or otherwise, looking at God's creation from above and what man has done to it to subdue it (and all that entails!).
To find antennas using Google Earth works well IF the sun was toward the horizon when the photos were taken as that then throws a shadow that is easily seen. But if the sun was overhead the shadow will be short or nearly non-existant and towers are just spots on the ground. I haven't spent much time looking for the towers yet, but may get a chance to look again early next week. The Street View images from Roanoke are rather blurry and the distant towers are not very discernable if at all so I was unable to find them the first time I looked.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
I'm going to have to wait until Saturday to read that post above, as I am out of time now, but at this moment, a Conrail loco is on a train with a red caboose, perhaps the one I saw earlier with different-colored sections on it, and tow trucks are going by towing very large vehicles for some odd reason. The signals can now be seen, so it is interesting to see when the Conrail train will be given the go-ahead. It's also nice to see the signals changing as the dispatcher does his thing...
Rich
Those that desire, find a way..... Those that don't, find an excuse.
That white car had actually moved to a different position at least once, though it does spend much time there. I'm not sure why. What model camera do you have? I've got a Kodak Z880 that does 10 MP.
BTW, FYI, that line should read "After the lead engines had PASSED my position on the overpass..." Now another way to say it would be "After the lead engines had gone past..." I just try to help people with those if you're interested.
Dusk has been very interesting around the camera (and I'd imagine dawn would be, too). The lighting of the signals, while still being able to see much of the action, combined with all the lighting around from the sky and other lights, provides interesting scenes and pictures. It's just generally beautiful. Some of you might try to get on around then just to check it out and see what you think about those time periods. Now the downside is that both cameras will rapidly have constant focus issues, so any passing trains might be surprisingly difficult to make out well.
EDIT-Looking at teh cams now, a train with ballast going somewhere passed on the far track, there is a couch sitting on the road on the right side of the VMT cam, and some lady had a bad time parallel parking on the main cam, and even trapped someone in a rediculously small space. The variety never stops.
all you camera watchers. I'll be under the camera between 1 - 3 PM EDT today.
Well... you musta been "Under" the camera cuz I didn't see anyone waiving or doin' jumpin-jacks out in front of the cameras...
I have been down in the dungeon doing laundry and had the laptop on-line reading various forums with the Hotel camera open in the corner of the screen. and when I was not actively watching the camera I recorded it. From about 12;30 EDT until about 1:45 I watched only the Hotel cam, but then I added in the VMT cam until about 3:30 and recorded a lot of that time.
Saw lotsa people walk by both cameras (and stop at the guard rail for a few minutes on the VMT cam), but again, nobody paid any attention to where the camera is.
Do you have any idea what time you may have been within the camreas' visual range... I could look again at the recordings I made, but a fast forward through them revealed nobody waiving either.
I'll keep the files a couple of days to give you a chance to respond as to where and when I should be looking.
Just saw one unit and two slugs running light . Good clear day for watching . RON
Semper: Sorry wife's family emergency cancelled me out. Really wanted to get there. Couldn't find a WiFi hot spot.
No problem... I got to watch a lot of trains and it was the type of "chore day" that was perfect for railcam watching. Hope your Wife's family is okay.
I think we "railcam watchers" need to settle on some sort of visual signal to let us know if one of us is in the view of one of the cameras. Probably should NOT be just a hand gesture (even a clean one) as it might not really be visible at any sort of distance. Of course, some wild gyration might bring unwanted attention from others in the area!
Maybe putting one hand on your head while looking toward the camera?
Or, pretent pulling of a whistle cord? (That might get a trucker to blast his horn if done near Shennendoah Ave which might scare you if you are not paying attention to what is on the street behind you!!)
If you are in the perview of the VMT cam, make sure you stand still long enough for the camera to refresh and people can see you were there. Sometimes I have seen people in the distance walking toward the camera and the next update all I can see is the top of their heads as they go off scene at the bottom! Of course a signal that includes motion won't be recognized on the VMT cam at all!
Any other ideas for a "secret signal"????
Any idea for a particular place to make the signal?
Been out of town for a few days . Anything new or exciting happen since tuesday ? RON
Nothing at all... well... outside of the two steam locomotives crashing into each other headon.
Oh wait... that was on YouTube.
Stand behind the white car in the parking lot that is taking root, then raise a sign that says " hello Ray L Fans~~~~~
Cannonball
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
I've been flipping between this cam and the Museums watching some kind of a race on Norfolk Avenue. I'll give the runners a lot of credit for doing this in the rain. Hope the temperatures are better there than here in Pittsburgh.
Tom
Pittsburgh, PA
The white car has vanished , and the mystery deepens. Did the cam catch the event???
Jim
Nice , bright sunny day in roanoke . Just logged on and a train was moving through . RON
switch7frg The white car has vanished , and the mystery deepens. Did the cam catch the event??? Jim
Yes, that's the first thing I noticed....White car has vanished....plus the nice sunshine.
Quentin
I can`t understand why this website is so slow . Any other site i go to loads almost instantly . Almost every time i go to the trains website it times out before it loads . This was my favorite website , but i am fast losing interest . RON
Has anyone tried the Mierlo-Hout railcam in the netherlands lately ? I have had no luck bringing up the cam lately . If anyone knows a different way to access it , please post . Thank you . RON
I never heard of the Netherlands cam, sorry. They are working to try to fix the forum slowness, but it is tough to find where the problem is. I also notice slowdowns from time to time. If it's too slow, try it again a while later and hope for better luck.
I was on when the marathon was going on. I'm sure a light shower would've felt nice, but that off and on rain had to have been nasty. A number of people did have raincoats, but trying to run in those...ugh! The VMT cam did show some guy that would be waiting there watching the runners, and clapping as they came and turned the corner. I wonder who won. The event did shut down at some point with the very heavy rain that was ongoing...not surprised.
I did watch a guy run through the stop sign on the hotel cam. I also saw that most people hate to use their headlights, even with dark, rainy conditions. I wonder what the average number of offenses are on people's licenses there, and the number of crashes.
On the issue of signals to the cam, right away I thought of the 1-finger salute (hey, that would certainly get people's attention and be a very specific signal!), but as was mentioned by another guy, any signal, even the clean ones, might not be easy to see. It's also important to remember that the cameras do go in and out of focus, and you never know how bad it might be. I would say overall, have a large sign with something on it. If you can't do that, certainly do some wild waving and jumping while clearly looking at the cam, and we'll know it's someone from here.
J610, get a picture of the slugs? I got one from a while ago, but I don't know where it's at. blue streak, congratulations on the wife's emergency. I hope everything turned out okay. And one final guy who I now forgot, your forum avatar now shows a red X for some reason. I don't know if you can do antyhing about this or not.
Hotel cam is not loading for me . Is anyone else having a problem with it ? All other websites except trains.com are loading fine . RON
I can get in through the RRCTrainsDOTcom link but not the other two ways I know of. But that is the 1 frame per second update rate site. The low rez Hotel site view is not working, nor the is high rez site. I have no clue as to why... it is just like I have seen it happen before and it eventually gets fixed.
j610 Hotel cam is not loading for me.
Hotel cam is not loading for me.
No joy @ 23:47 MDT.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
....Yes, my disappointment with the hotel cam as well...I like to check what the weather is there in the morning, so....went over to the other cam facing east, and found they do have a nice sunny morning.
Hope the hotel cam comes back in good shape again.
Apparently they do not realize how many of us are hopelessly addicted to their camera . RON
j610 Apparently they do not realize how many of us are hopelessly addicted to their camera . RON
no no no no... I refuse to accept the moniker "Hopeless"...
When I log-in to the cam sites, I "HOPE" they are working. Then I "HOPE" to see a train, Then I "HOPE" to see another one... and I "HOPE" to see an unusual engine type and I "HOPE" to see something different in the consist.
HOPELESS... never... I am full of "HOPE"!
I stand corrected , Semper . You are right . LOL RON
Cams UP!
Great!!! They seem to get it fixed faster each time . RON
.....Just checked out both cams, and bingo...! Both are doing as they should be doing. A short train setting between the two cams. Thanks to whomever did the excercise to get the hotel cam back up and running.
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