Hey guys check out this cool aerial video. It shows a lot of industry and trains in Houston!
I guess you have to copy and past the link? sorry.
It helps to put “{url}” and “{/url}” on either side of your link (just use brackets instead of braces), as I just did here:
http://vimeo.com/9421095 And what a spectacular video it is! I wish we could arrange for a native (and most people know whom I have in mind!) to narrate this so we knew the territory, which railroads we were looking at, etc. It was nice to see the train moving across it at one point.
Wonder if Houston Ed has seen it from this perspective?
Calling Houston…
Wow there is a lot there. No wonder a hurricane hitting Houston could send our gas prices upward.
Ok Mookie, , I heard you and Carl.,
I will give it a go as I work live here.
A few details first.
Most of the railroad tracks you see are Port Terminal Railroad Association tracks.
The bridge in the opening is the Sidney Sherman Ship Channel Bridge, also know as the Loop 610 bridge as it is part of Loop 610 and the interstate system, the loop circles Houston.
The first yard you see that runs under this bridge it the PTRA Manchester Yard, and our Main offices are the brown office building on the right next to the yard.
The plant in the foreground is Rhoida, it makes/distributes sulfuric acid.
The water way is the Houston ship channel, (Buffalo Bayou) and this is shot on the south side, flying east.
The area is known as Manchester Terminal, in the 1920s it was the terminal where ocean going steam ship docked, both passenger and freight.
From here, you could ride the IGN, or take a bus to Union Station and ride the Santa Fe, CB&Q, and several other railroads.
At one time, 18 different railroads entered Houston.
At 00.38 you see Westway Molasses.
.00.52 Valero Refinery
1.30 is the old Cotton Press, and was used by Hughes tools to produce and distribute ammunition during WWII .
1.30 is Cabior Purchasing, a Stevedore company.
1.50 Citgo Lyondell (ARCO) petroleum coke unit and refinery, we handle at least one train a day in and out of here to the other side of the channel where it is loaded into barges .
2.38 UP cut off from PTRA #2 main, this is Sinco Junction, the one with the moving train, which happens to be Carls railroad, the UP…this runs to Manchester on UP tracks (CTC) and allows UP to bypass Manchester yard.
It also allows UP direct access to our Pasadena yard.
2.40 Motiva manufacturing.
3.05 A.E.S. DeepWater, petrochemical offshore drilling manufacturing and co generation plant.
3.09 The trestle /bridge crosses a small creek, the siding is San
Way to go, Ed. I’m not sure I have the attention span for the video, but your travelogue narration makes it sound inviting. We don’t think often about where a lot of the modern raw materials source from (well, I do, once in a while, like when I see a pellet hopper sitting next to the Toro plant in El Cajon, for instance) and when we get a description like yours above, it is a welcome knowledge addition. When you think of all the sweat, technology and ingenuity that went into that creation machine you call home, you can’t help but be darned impressed.
Thanks again.
I thought I saw him waving…
[}:)]
Great narration Ed, Thanks!
Thank you, Ed.
I see now that the video has been pulled. Copyrights?
Well, that was pretty good - for as briefly as it lasted . . . [V]
Maybe it didn’t dish enough or as much dirt’ on the chemical industry as the producers and proponents would have liked or wanted ? And/ or, they figured out or ‘got wind’ that we had hijacked it for our own railfan purposes instead ?
Actually, it looked more like a promotional video for the PTRA and the Port in general, esp. with Ed’s detailed and informative comments. [tup] Too bad that no one else will get to see that from now on ?
“Sorry, “Houston Petrochemical Corridor Landscan” was deleted at 12:23:25 Wed Feb 17, 2010. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere”.
Son of a gun![sigh]
Guess the link was too hot. Ed was too sexy; I guess he must have been waving with his shirt off![:O][}:)][(-D]
Found it here.
Thanks, Larry! I would hate to have encouraged Ed to describe it for nothing. I’ll print out Ed’s narrative and follow along later.