ROANOKE RAIL CAM - Trains Magazine

Refer to my post from the 21st of Oct above (Top of this page of the thread... unless this post causes a new page to start!)  Note the photo of the "smoke" coming from the top of the monument of the David R and Susan S Goode Railwalk.

Here is a second image I took of it back then:

Over the next week I kept watch of that place several times per day to see if the smoke appeared again.  It didn't!

Curiosity got the better of me and I called the Virginia Museum of Transportation to ask if the smoke was a problem or if anyone knew anything about it.  I got an answering machine so I just left a too short explanation of what I had seen and asked if they knew anything about it.  I left my phone number, not really expecting a reply... (I figured they'd be thinkin' "Some 'weirdo' says our stone monument is on fire!" and then ignore me.)

Well, today I got a call from the Director of the Museum, Bev Fitzpatrick, asking for more information about what I saw.  He described the monument a bit better than I could determine from the Webcam (seeing the back of it) or via Google Earth and Street View (which has deliberately blurry images).  It has a corrugated metal back wall that water runs down to a reflecting pool that extends to the west around the adjacent stone outline of the state of Virginia showing the N & W routes.

Fortunately, he knew of no fire associated with the monument, but did offer, maybe in jest, that maybe someone put some dry-ice in the pool at the top where the water cascades down the corrugated  metal front.  So, unfortunately, no good explanation for what I saw.

BUT!  Ta Da... he told me of a new railcam that the museum has set up recently and told me the URL:

Take a look at:

This camera is facing East (the opposite direction of the one at the hotel) but is west of the hotel, looking back at the location of the Hotel's camera several blocks away.

The video stream is very slow, updating once every 2 to 3 seconds, but it is full color all the time (so far as I can tell).  It is 900x450 resolution and at night the security lights in the area spill over to the tracks so the trains are well illuminated at night.  (Edit: I screwed up... the resolution is 770x383.)

The link has a 4 minute time-out and disconnects after that time.  You will have to click the small blue circle "Play" button (">") to get it to continue for another 4 minutes.

Distance focus is not too good, especially at night as the headlights of an oncoming train are just a large blurry white spot, but close up trains are clear and the engine (and some car numbers) are easily read.

I am still studying the things in the background, trying to figure out just where some of them are.  I see a large (and blurry) green light that seems to be blinking at some rate that does not match the frame rate of the camera so the blinking is quite sporadic... bright in one frame, off in the next 2 or 3, then maybe dim in one and then off again for a couple and then bright again. I don't know if the blinking is a permanent thing or if it is a RR signal showing some specific aspect by blinking at this moment.

Here is a screen shot of the two webcam images side-by-side on my screen.  The VMT cam is on the left in the Browser window and the Hotel cam is on the right in the Media Player window.  (The time display above the Media Player window is a StopWatch program I wrote, set to count down 4 minutes and then play a sound to alert me that the camera has probably disconnected so I can restart it... I watched it for 30 minutes before I realized that nothing was happening because it had disconnected!  I thought it odd that there was no street traffic, and then I realized the truck on the corner had been there at the Stop-sign an awfully long time! 

 The VMT image seems to be mostly B&W in this shot, but there is some green on the right background... dunno why the rest is so bland... just dark I guess.

  Anyway, we now have a second camera to watch trains on... I want to get some images of the cabeese that traverse that area.