Question: Looking at the Rochelle webcam today I saw a piece of maintenance equipment continually going back and forth on one of the UP tracks right at the diamond. Anybody know what it was doing? I’m thinking some type of rail grinding but that is strictly a guess. Thanks.
Might have been a diamond polisher.
Seriously, they may have replaced some parts (which they do there frequently) and were just checking out their repairs.
If it looked like a truck, it may be the same thing I saw a few mornings ago, just after sunrise.
It came from the East on the UP rails, slowed for the diamond, then went forward, reversed then went forward a little further. It repeated this several times until it passed the diamonds. It then backed up to the diamonds, stayed there for a few minutes, then proceeded to the West.
About 10 minutes after it left, the area around the diamonds turned dark, like the snow had melted. I assumed that it was chipping ice from the diamond, then spread some de-icer around the diamonds. Just a guess.
It was hard to see just what was happening due to the poor early light and the fact that the camera stops down due to the bright snow.
It wasn’t a truck. It kept going back and forth on the closest UP track over the diamonds for approximately 20 minutes or more. The area of snow at the diamonds was already black so I couldn’t tell if it spread de-iccer or not. But I wouldn’t think it was just spreading de-icer since it made so many passes. It did head west when done.
There’re a couple pics just before 10 AM of a special train, by the looks of it. I can’t tell exactly what that is though. Is that a rail train, with a spine rail?
If those two archived pictures (hurry up!) show it, on the BNSF side, it appears to be an ordinary train of spine cars with empty intermodal chassis (I think the plural of chassis is also chassis). Definitely not a rail train.
P.S.
“Diamond polisher.” PZ, that was a real gem!
So, I am hoping that I can suggest to someone who has the coding skills on this site to consider modifying the app for teh Rochelle webcam. Due to its small size, I think it would be better presented in a small, toolbar-like window. It should have the options to either be always on top, or act like a normal window. This would allow people who are watching it to always see it without interfering with their other stuff. In addition, a couple coltrol buttons in a space underneath it would allow people to use basic stuff, including opening recent shots in a new window, taking a live snapshot of the current frame (which is automatically saved in whatever destination folder they choose, which can be modified with another button to respecify a save path), and refresh the camera when animation stops.
This kind of change would not affect the stream in any way, and is done solely on the trains.com site, and is simply opening a new, small, draggable window around. The small size of the Rochelle cam isn’t so much an issue if it can be utilized in ways like this, and this wouldn’t even cost any more in usage rates or bandwidth-it would simply allow people to see the video that’s being streamed to them at all times. So, does whoever is in charge of this stuff want to consider this modification? Thanks.
Does anyone know where the empty rail train was that was shown this morning on the webcam? Also, at this moment (but not for long) is a pic on Page 3 of the snapshots of a train with odd-shaped white cylindrical containers. What are those for?
edit-The rail train went by the camera at Tuesday, Jul 13, 11:30 AM. The white container train went by on Wednesday, Jul 14, 2:36 PM.
The webcam won’t load anymore. Now, it just gives the message “Error, click here for details.” Clicking doesn’t do any good, and there are no details to anything. Also, the previous shots page has removed the links at the bottom to the next pages. I dislike this, because I thought it was often normal to scroll through the previous shots, down to the bottom, and then click onto the next page and continue. Well, this makes you scroll back up and do it that way, from the links at the top. It should remain as before-links on the top and bottom.
It has worked for me the few times I have tried it, but I have seen no trains.
The links to the previous motion detected images are all right at the top of the main camera image and each of those three links point to a page that has the same 3 links to get to the other pages and a link to return to the main page. I don’t understand what you are having a problem with. Works slick for me.
Saw a sight for sore eyes to a long time railfan like myself, a train of mostly boxcar’s. Well maybe 65% or so boxcar’s, as well as gondola’s and cylindrical hopper’s. Not a double stack container in sight. At about 11:30 CDT 09-18-10. If you are over a certain age, you really miss seeing trains that look like this.
Unfortunately there was an appalling amount of graffiti on most of the cars. Amazingly though, there was an old C&O or “Chessie System” box that had a “Chessie the Cat” logo that the vandals had left alone. Sight’s like that won’t be around much longer, as I suspect most cars with that paint job will be coming to the end of their legal lives in interchange service soon.
I happened to notice this thread had come up again on the forum front page, so after I saw the train I thought I would make this post. And I do miss watching long strings of boxcar’s rolling along at 50-60 MPH on jointed rail.
Bruce
Rochelle Webcam…Guess I’m missing something too. Have not tried to gain access to that site since the format changed here…But reading some of these posts, figured I should go take a look…
But how…? What am I missing…
Just under the Trains banner at the top is a line of text and over to the right is the word “Interactive”; hover your mouse arrow over it and a menu will drop down. One entry in that menu is “Web Cams”. Click on that word and you will get a page that has link so a couple of webcams and some other interesting pages.
The New Rochelle link should replace the links page, but you can force it to open in a new window or tab by right clicking the link and selecting which one you want from the context menu that appears. The Roanoke Railcam link will open your video player (usually Windows Media Player and the browser will return to the links page (hidden behind the player window).
Quentin,
There was an update from Java that occurred late in August, I think. If you check in Control Panel and look at Java, under the General tab push the About button and it should say version 6 update 21. If you use Mac I don’t know what to say, other than it probably has an update too.
In the new format Web Cams are located under the Interactive button, under the picture, at the top of the homepage. Actually, I think the Web Cam has been loading faster than it used to.
The last times I used it before the New Format came out, my problem was to have to update the page too ofter. I could watch for fifteen minutes or so before I would have to hit update at one time, and it seemed like I had to do it twice as often before I quit looking at it altogether. I wasn’t there long enough to determine the stability today.
All other things being equal, if you have the latest Java update, you should be able to watch trains.
Bruce
…Thanks fellows…I’ll go see if I can take a look.
I dunno, it works fine on my ancient (2003) Mac and the last Java update was 15 months ago, it would seem.
I simply went as advised, up and start at “interactive”, and continued until I arrived. Thanks.
IE7
It’s working fine now. And, yes, it loads much faster. Too bad there’s still not much to look at other than double-stacks and wide-cab UPs. The Roanoke webcam is now my #1, though I still check the Rochelle one on occasion.
One thing I wonder about…I have seen on occasion (including just now), a train that seems to have pusher locomotive(s), followed by several more cars, coming through on the UP track. I assume these helpers picked up a quick load waiting for them at some point, and then went on their way, connecting back with the train, and pushing it along. I can’t remember for sure, but I believe these were all container trains. The current one was a double stack train, with piggy backs behind the helper power.
Anyone else see these and know where the “additionals” get picked up at? I believe it was always on the far UP track, coming toward the camera, but I’m not certain of that, either.