Railcams

[C855B]

Kevin, would it be possible to get some technical details on the integration? I'm especially interested in the server software, as it might solve an issue with my own railcam. Thanks.

[Kevin Yutz]

I'll see what I can do when im down there and if we get the new cams in time to install them. They know more on the tech aspects than I.

[trainforfun]

There is a new railcam system in Rochelle Ill . it's now in real time , possibility of full screen and what's more there is now sound !!!!!!!!!!!
The downside is you have to be a subscriber of Trains magazine .
The quality is super !!!

[wcfn100]

The new SPUD has two cameras.  Not great frame rates but great locations.

http://www.uniondepot.org/transit/amtrak/

To get oriented, anything leaving Camera2 to the right will show up on Camera1.

Lots of different roads to see.  UP, BNSF, CP, Twin Cities and Western, Minnesota Commercial, Amtrak and Northstar (Commuter).


Jason

[C855B]

Here's a test of time-lapse recording on the Centralia, IL railcam, taken today (12/4/14) between midnight and 10 a.m. Time compression is 2.5 Hours for every minute of video. Video is pretty big at 400+MB. Time stamp is at the top left of the frame, so you'll probably want to full-screen it to see the time.

Not a valid vimeo URL
It was an unusually quiet night - only 3 trains between 12 and 5, two being Amtrak #'s 59 and 58. Things sort of cut loose around 5.

I don't know yet if I'm going to be able to make this a regular feature of the cam. The large file - near my Vimeo storage limit, too - for only 10 hours is probably the biggest issue. I'm also not happy with Vimeo's apparent inability to step frame by frame, which somewhat defeats what you can get from the time lapse. I haven't tried downloading it back from Vimeo to see if the frame organization is preserved for QT or other playback; I'll play with that later.

Plan B might to store the .mov files on my server and list them for download on the railcam page... but do I want to eat the potential bandwidth hit? We'll see, I guess.

EDIT: 24 hour .mp4 version uploaded, replacing the .mov behemoth.

[trainforfun]

I lost Cresson and Chesterton free live cam , am I the only one ?   

[3rdboxcar]

I lost Cresson and Chesterton free live cam , am I the only one ?   

They are still free you just have to register to get them.

Alexander

[Bob Bufkin]

Looks like they are installing a new signal bridge at Rochelle.  Lifting a portion now.  It was on the ground a half hour ago.

[C855B]

You win some, you lose some. Hopefully it won't compromise too much, but the fence is going all the way to CN's ROW.

Yesterday:



24 hours later:



It would've been nice if I had a heads-up, as the primary parties behind it both know me. Smells of backroom dealing, but, hey, I can't complain too much since I have also been the recent beneficiary of similar handshake arrangements.

[central.vermont]

Gonna have to mount the camera up a bit higher now Mike.

Jon

[C855B]

Well, now that it's finished it isn't completely debilitating. I can live with it, more or less. My biggest concern was if it was going to block the view of the signal in the left side of the frame. That's my easy index for determining which track (of three) a train is on. I have a tower stashed away if necessary, to raise the camera from 14' to 30'. I'd rather not, it's a lot of work, for a number of reasons, and I especially have no interest in climbing towers like I used to do in my ham radio days. Plan B is to put the camera up on the museum a block away, shooting across the field from the northeast, but that angle has a dead-on view of sunsets four months out of the year and will eventually blind the sensor.

Fear now is when the guy who put up the fence is going to start in earnest on the real project, drilling an oil well on the site. He said a portable rig will be there for two weeks or so, but like all oil men of my experience (we have a share of a couple of low-producing wells), his word goes about as far as you can throw 'im. So I'm steeled for a rig in the middle of the frame for two or three months, or more. When the project started I signed off on horizontal drilling under our property from a site about a quarter-mile south of us, but somehow the plan changed, then changed again, then the city got involved "to profit from the well proceeds" (yeah, right), and it all changed to being right in my view after some real estate shenanigans (like I should talk!). He also said "subterranean pump", but I know damn well it's going to be a pumpjack with all the smells that come with it. I was hoping that $40 oil was going to shut down this project, as local yields can't support much less than $65. I'll certainly give him credit for being stubborn.

[GaryHinshaw]

I'm surprised your town allows oil drilling in a commercial/residential zone. Is this not such a zone, or is it a case of anything goes?

[Smike]

In the states, most areas have the mineral rights holder above the surface land owner. So in a lot cases it doesn't matter what the zoning is on the surface. Here in PA local counties have fought to apply zoning to control mineral extraction with limited or no sucess in the courts.

[C855B]

Yes, "mixed use", commercial + residential. But not industrial. Smike is likely right. The whole town starting here and going west is dotted with pumpjacks sprinkled among the homes from the '50s oil boom. So this is SNAFU.

But then, our "town fathers" have their heads firmly planted in the 1960s sand, desperately grasping for any straw that might restore the glory days. The oil boom was the last great windfall. As I said, I know the characters in this little play, and all I can do is shake my head over the impossible promises and corner-cutting by the actors. Heck, the mentality here is that the about-to-be-completed "Super Wal-Mart" is going to draw new business to the area, while not decimating what local retail we have left. I strongly disagree. Business and local government here has frighteningly little exposure to how things are done outside the immediate local area. Frequently, whenever I mention a concept that is business-as-usual in other metro regions of my experience, I get a "bah" hand-wave if not a glare like I'm from outer space. I'm not a native, so what can I possibly know?  I guess this happens everywhere, "not invented here" being a universal guiding principal.

But it's home now. For what that's worth.

[C855B]

The finished fence:



I'm not happy. The fence cuts off anything below walkways. I can still conduct traffic surveys, but getting stills of "interesting stuff" is now severely hampered. Here's an example of something interesting, before the fence:



Compare to the fence view, and you'll see that it simply would not be an effective shot, with the lower third of the GMD-1 blocked. Further to the right of the frame and clear of the fence is too far away for details. A tower might mitigate it a little if I re-aim the camera toward the right and up a little, and zoom in a bit in order to take the fence out of the center of the frame. Maybe Wednesday I can get up there and adjust the framing and zoom to see where we stand.