With the current alignment of the webcam, I can just see the lowest light on the UP WB signal. When I first logged in a few minutes ago, it was flashing red; it flashed a couple of times and went dark. In the time it took me to open this page, an empty coal train passed under the dark signal and it went to a steady red.
I can understand the train passing under a dark signal; I can't see the upper light(s) and the signal was probably Clear. But in my day on the NYC / PC, a blinking red aspect indicated "Call signal maintainer ASAP" and "Assume signal is displaying its most restrictive indication".
Can some UP expert bring me up to date on a blinking red aspect?
ChuckAllen, TX
rdettmer i watch the rochelle cam and listen to northern ill sound feed on tune in. now i can't get the sound. anybody else do the same.
i watch the rochelle cam and listen to northern ill sound feed on tune in. now i can't get the sound. anybody else do the same.
It's been offline ever since the day before Thanksgiving. Perhaps it went visiting to Grandma's for the holiday weekend.
CatFoodFlambe CAZEPHYR The diamond seems to be worked on almost every day I watch the cam. It seems to be the diamond requires more maintenance that other diamonds around the nation. Any thoughts of the problem or is it just heavy traffic causing what looks to be above normal maintenance. RR Heavy traffic is definitely one factor. The diamond for the two south tracks seems to produce the most "rock and roll" (underlying drainage problem, perhaps?), but the MOW teams seem to spend most of their efforts on the two diamonds on the UP north track. Since that's the track that carries most of the coal loads, I suspect they're building up battered rail ends much of the time.
CAZEPHYR The diamond seems to be worked on almost every day I watch the cam. It seems to be the diamond requires more maintenance that other diamonds around the nation. Any thoughts of the problem or is it just heavy traffic causing what looks to be above normal maintenance. RR
The diamond seems to be worked on almost every day I watch the cam. It seems to be the diamond requires more maintenance that other diamonds around the nation. Any thoughts of the problem or is it just heavy traffic causing what looks to be above normal maintenance.
RR
Heavy traffic is definitely one factor. The diamond for the two south tracks seems to produce the most "rock and roll" (underlying drainage problem, perhaps?), but the MOW teams seem to spend most of their efforts on the two diamonds on the UP north track. Since that's the track that carries most of the coal loads, I suspect they're building up battered rail ends much of the time.
They are welding up the points of the crossing frogs - they get battered as each and every wheel crosses the flange space for the other carriers track.
Those frogs are manufactured of the hardest steel possible to resist the batter, however, 50-100 Million tons a year passing over them from each carriers batter away, axle by axle. Remember, a 1000 axle train batters each frog point 1000 times on each rail. The repetitive sounds you hear as a train passes is the batter that is taking place - two hits per axle, one on each rail gap.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CAZEPHYRI did notice that some trains still blow the horn for the crossing west of the diamond recently.
One way to tell when EB's are coming off the spur, and back onto the BNSF line, is those movements still sound their horn at the crossing just out of sight to the west.
Usually between 9-10 AM CST.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Deggesty cessna 310 Brian, I opened the Rochelle webcam today and it seemed odd that the engineers of both BNSF and UP were not blowing for the crossings. Has the town of Rochelle enacted a no "whistle zone"? Bill King Yes, a few months ago.
cessna 310 Brian, I opened the Rochelle webcam today and it seemed odd that the engineers of both BNSF and UP were not blowing for the crossings. Has the town of Rochelle enacted a no "whistle zone"? Bill King
Brian,
I opened the Rochelle webcam today and it seemed odd that the engineers of both BNSF and UP were not blowing for the crossings. Has the town of Rochelle enacted a no "whistle zone"?
Bill King
Yes, a few months ago.
I did notice that some trains still blow the horn for the crossing west of the diamond recently. Quiet zones must require gate crossing. In our town, the road was modified with a center concrete barrier to prevent drivers from changing lanes and driving around the gate in the quiet zone crossings.
Johnny
CatFoodFlambeWonder if those could have been "making the turn" at Mojave to head for the ports at LA/Long Beach? When I was last familiar with IM patterns, there was a steady pararde of baretables from Seattle and Oakland to LA - boats making multiple West Coast ports tended to hit LA first, then work north, and liked to "load up" for the trip east at the last stop.
Not sure, but today saw a big string of empty well cars in a siding near Perris CA west of the I-215 freeway. Also saw four blue-yellow former ATSF units, two of which looked to be starting up cold iron. Several IM trains spotted going up Cajon Pass as well. Lots of activity all around, it would seem, as Tehachapi was as busy as I've ever seen it, round the clock.
ChuckCobleigh CatFoodFlambe Intermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast? Well, this morning I saw a long bare table BNSF train eastbound through Tehachapi. Go figure.
CatFoodFlambe Intermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast?
I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast?
Well, this morning I saw a long bare table BNSF train eastbound through Tehachapi.
Go figure.
Wonder if those could have been "making the turn" at Mojave to head for the ports at LA/Long Beach? When I was last familiar with IM patterns, there was a steady pararde of baretables from Seattle and Oakland to LA - boats making multiple West Coast ports tended to hit LA first, then work north, and liked to "load up" for the trip east at the last stop.
jeffhergert BaltACD ChuckCobleigh CatFoodFlambe Intermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast? Well, this morning I saw a long bare table BNSF train eastbound through Tehachapi. Go figure. Different carriers - different traffic patterns. It's not unheard of for a westbound bare table to meet an eastbound. I've seen that a few times on the UP. Jeff
BaltACD ChuckCobleigh CatFoodFlambe Intermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast? Well, this morning I saw a long bare table BNSF train eastbound through Tehachapi. Go figure. Different carriers - different traffic patterns.
Different carriers - different traffic patterns.
It's not unheard of for a westbound bare table to meet an eastbound. I've seen that a few times on the UP.
Jeff
I'm sure this happens all the time with other car types; it's just so much more observable with container cars.
Read a number the other day that shocked me: the great majority of cars of all types are privately owned these days -- many more than in the past. So what's this got to do with the topic? Simple. I want MY car on the west coast where I have a load waiting for it. At the same time, you want YOUR car on the east coast where you have a waiting load.
Still, it does look odd when you see them meet en route to where different owners want them.
CatFoodFlambeIntermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast?
Intermodal traffic must be imbalanced again - just saw a long UP baretable heading west on the north track, meaning it's going futher west that G-3 on the west side on Rochelle. I would assume it's probably heading for the West Coast?
The camera icon seems to be greyed out on Safari. But on the Mac, all you have to do is click Cmd-Shift-3 and a screen shot is automatically placed in your Desktop folder. If you want to select a part of the screen, use Cmd-Shift-4. No need to open a separate program.
Just realized that with the new camera we now have some movement, and some zoom, and a clearer image. I miss the air horns alerting me to an oncoming train, though--though I expect the neighbors don't.
/Mr Lynn
I had quick resonse with Chrome .. noticed a green arrow that allows you to directly download the file.
Tried the camera capture. Had to authorized a popup for it to activate. Had no trouble sending the image from a gmail account to a yahoo account. Running Firefox on a W10 machine.
If one clicks on the full screen icon, when it goes to full screen the camera icon disappears.
After writing tmy excessively long monologue on how to capture an image from the Webcam... I logged on to the camera and see that they changed the display a bit. I now see a Camera icon in the middle bottom of the window... so I clicked on it!
It took a while to open a new window, but it did eventually show an image from the webcam and had a place to enter some information.
The top line didn't explain what it was for. I figured it was for a "Subject line" and entered "TEST"... later found out that it is probably a place to enter your name so that the email that is sent will have some personalization to it.
Then it had a place to enter a "FROM" e-mail address and another place to enter a "TO" e-mail address. I have two Yahoo addresses so I entered one in each place.
Below that is a place for a message to be entered for the body of the e-mail to be sent.
I entered something about this being a test.
I then clicked the "Send Email" button at the bottom.
I went to the Yahoo address I sent the e-mail TO and got nothing for a long time, so I closed that page and opened the FROM account (Can't have the both open at the same time).
The FROM account had received a message that the email had been rejected by the receipiant for "Policy" reasons. The image of the Webcam was included in that rejection.
The rejection notice also had a link to look up the policy and it said that the system was unable to authenticate the Sending address. From what I could tell, the domain name of the real sender was Earthcam, but the e-mail address domain was Yahoo, so they are not the same, so it rejected the e-mail.
Not sure how to address that! I don't have an Earthcam e-mail address to enter as the FROM address so I can't try that (not sure anyone can have such an address). I am not willing to use any of my other e-mail address since I fear "e-mail address harvesting" by whoever is providing this service and don't want junk sent to those addresses but it appears at least that Yahoo cannot be the "TO" address, though I could obtain the image from the rejection notice if I wanted to, so the abiltity to capture something on screen has a somewhat simpler process...
BUT...
Once I clicked the Camera icon, I had to answer a warning about whether I wanted to allow the site to run an external process then I had to click the Camera icon again to get the pop-up to appear that contained an image and I could not tell in the tests I performed, just when it actually captured the screen image... all that time clicking and waiting could allow that historic shot of the UFO beaming the SD70 off to Mars might be missed completely!
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
cefinkjr CAZEPHYR cefinkjr Where's a good photographer when you need one? Two BNSF trains just met exactly as they both reached the diamonds. Couldn't have been timed more perfectly if the two engineers had practiced it and agreed before hand that they would both arrive at the diamonds at the same time ... to the second ... at track speed! And yes, they were both moving out right smartly. They were both gone before I finished typing the paragraph above and I type at 60 wpm. I noticed that most BNSF trains run faster at the diamond than the typical UP train. Any thoughts on that?? Is there a speed restriction? I've noticed the same thing and have always assumed it was higher speed limits on tracks leading to the diamonds for BNSF than for UP. Plus there is Global III nearby that would reduce the speed of some UP trains. UP certainly doesn't have a reputation for lagging (like some roads I could name but won't so as to avoid embarrassment and/or argument).
CAZEPHYR cefinkjr Where's a good photographer when you need one? Two BNSF trains just met exactly as they both reached the diamonds. Couldn't have been timed more perfectly if the two engineers had practiced it and agreed before hand that they would both arrive at the diamonds at the same time ... to the second ... at track speed! And yes, they were both moving out right smartly. They were both gone before I finished typing the paragraph above and I type at 60 wpm. I noticed that most BNSF trains run faster at the diamond than the typical UP train. Any thoughts on that?? Is there a speed restriction?
cefinkjr Where's a good photographer when you need one? Two BNSF trains just met exactly as they both reached the diamonds. Couldn't have been timed more perfectly if the two engineers had practiced it and agreed before hand that they would both arrive at the diamonds at the same time ... to the second ... at track speed! And yes, they were both moving out right smartly. They were both gone before I finished typing the paragraph above and I type at 60 wpm.
Where's a good photographer when you need one? Two BNSF trains just met exactly as they both reached the diamonds. Couldn't have been timed more perfectly if the two engineers had practiced it and agreed before hand that they would both arrive at the diamonds at the same time ... to the second ... at track speed!
And yes, they were both moving out right smartly. They were both gone before I finished typing the paragraph above and I type at 60 wpm.
I noticed that most BNSF trains run faster at the diamond than the typical UP train. Any thoughts on that?? Is there a speed restriction?
I've noticed the same thing and have always assumed it was higher speed limits on tracks leading to the diamonds for BNSF than for UP. Plus there is Global III nearby that would reduce the speed of some UP trains. UP certainly doesn't have a reputation for lagging (like some roads I could name but won't so as to avoid embarrassment and/or argument).
Chuck
Yes, the Global III site is just down the tracks four or five miles and you can certainly tell when an eastbound train is pulling out from Global III. They normally run on the right hand east out of Global III. Normal traffic is left hand running but even those trains are slow. I think I can see a red flag/lit at night near the camera for the west bound trains. The UP tracsk might be flagged for maintenance on the diamond. I noticed they are there a lot durning the week.
Semper Vaporo cefinkjr Where's a good photographer when you need one? If you are viewing the webcam using a PC (I assume the MAC has something similar but I am unaware of what or how to use it); your keyboard has a key labeled "PrtSc". When you see something of interest, press that key. This will save to the "Clipboard" the image of your screen as it was at the moment you pressed the key. Then run "Paint" (the present name of a free program that comes with Windows, used to be called "MS Paint" and "PaintBrush"). You can use any other drawing/photo editing program, too. They will have similar capabilities. . . . That was an awful lot of words to describe, "Do a Print Screen, copy the clipboard to a photo editing program, then crop it, size it and save it."
cefinkjr Where's a good photographer when you need one?
Where's a good photographer when you need one?
If you are viewing the webcam using a PC (I assume the MAC has something similar but I am unaware of what or how to use it); your keyboard has a key labeled "PrtSc". When you see something of interest, press that key. This will save to the "Clipboard" the image of your screen as it was at the moment you pressed the key.
Then run "Paint" (the present name of a free program that comes with Windows, used to be called "MS Paint" and "PaintBrush"). You can use any other drawing/photo editing program, too. They will have similar capabilities.
.
That was an awful lot of words to describe, "Do a Print Screen, copy the clipboard to a photo editing program, then crop it, size it and save it."
All well and good but where is the "Remove Spider Web" button?
Sorry, Semper. Just couldn't resist.
When "Paint" (or your photo editing program) opens, type "Ctrl-V" (hold down the "Crtl" key and press the "V" key) to paste the "Clipboard" into the drawing area of "Paint".
If you had the Webcam showing as Full Screen then skip ahead to the **** below.
I am going to assume here that you had the Webcam showing as a small window on your screen while you were busy using Excel to calculate why things don't add up, or composing an award winning novel using Word, so you will need to crop the image down to just the small image from the Webcam and remove the trash of the rest of the screen.
IMMEDIATELY after pasting the 'Clipboard' into 'Paint', click and drag the image up and to the left until the top of the Webcam image is aligned with the top and left of the Paint work area. If you accidently do something else and the image is frozen to the work area, type "Ctrl-A" (Hold down the "Ctrl" key and type the "A") to reselect the whole work area and then you can drag it up and left.
Once you have the upper and left sides aligned where you want them you need to crop the right side and bottom. Use the horizontal and vertical slider bars (if they are visible) to shift the image to the right side and about centered up and down. On the extreme right side will be a small white square with a black outline (you may have to click inside the work area, but outside the image, to see the tiny box). Click and drag that box to the left to bring the right edge of the work area to align with the right side of the Webcam image.
Then use the slider bars again to find the small white box with a black outline at the center of the bottom of the work area and click and drag that box up to align the bottom of the work area with the bottom of the Webcam image.
You can always shift the Webcam image up so as to eliminate the sky, and drag the bottom of the work area up to remove some of the bottom of the image. Same for dragging it to the left off the left side or drag the right edge of the work area to eliminate some of the sides of the image. This is useful if the image is large and you want to emphasize just some portion of the Webcam image.
****
You now have an image that can be saved and shared! But, if it is a very large image (like you had it as full screen) you may want to reduce the size using the "Resize" tool. This tool is in the "Tool Ribbon" at the top... click the word "Resize" near the left end. Enter a percentage of reduction, like 50% and see how it looks, if it is not to your liking, type "Ctrl-Z" to undo the change and try some other percentage.
To save the image, click "File" in the Menu bar at the top and mover your mouse over "Save As...", a selection of file types will appear, "JPEG" is probably the best type to save a screen capture image as, but click which ever type suits your fancy. You will get a "Save" dialog box, enter a descriptive name (such as "Rochelle Webcam 11-4-16 0830PM" (include the date and time if you wish) and click the "Save" button. BE SURE TO NOTE WHERE YOU ARE SAVING IT! Change the Directory/Folder if necessary before you click "Save"!!!
Now you can share that image on this forum.
CShaveRR Bruce, I strongly suspect that the trains you're seeing on UP are for ethanol. UP doesn't do much with CBR, at least in this neck of the woods.It would be hard for one to tell the difference between crude oil trains and ethanol trains on the webcam. An oil train may have more modern equipment, but new and upgraded tank cars can be seen in ethanol service, too. About the only way you can tell for sure is to check the placards.
Bruce, I strongly suspect that the trains you're seeing on UP are for ethanol. UP doesn't do much with CBR, at least in this neck of the woods.It would be hard for one to tell the difference between crude oil trains and ethanol trains on the webcam. An oil train may have more modern equipment, but new and upgraded tank cars can be seen in ethanol service, too. About the only way you can tell for sure is to check the placards.
I haven't seen an oil train on the line-up for a while. Even when we did have them, the only regular move came out of Colorado and was only a few times a week at it's heaviest.
Lots of ethanol though.
UP has a tamper working right in the middle of the diamonds on #2 track. Maybe this will relieve some the the extreme rock and roll issues this track has been having the last few months.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Either the third or fourth loaded EB oil train I've seen since Friday has just crossed the diamonds on BNSF at 0844 CDT. For what might be a brief moment, the economics of CBR might just be working. I suspect eastern refineries are laying in extra stock for the upcoming winter.
And UP hasn't been left out, as I've seen two WB and one EB oil trains in the same time frame on their line as well. Being the first of the month today I don't think is a coincidence.
I bet both RR's would like it to last, but I wouldn't be the ranch on it.
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