For about five years, my train hunting was sorted. I usually just sat in my backyard, pretending to garden. It got the usual parade of about 40 daylight trains - like 26 September 2016 when G516 worked an up trippy past the back fence.
If feeling athletic I went down to the either ends of the street, or even the local stations (Hurlstone Park and Canterbury), both about 600 metres away. But mostly, it was 'head out the kitchen window' stuff, like it was on 19 December 2015 when S317, GM22 and VL356 popped through at breakfast time with 8146 up containers.
But now I am up country, an hour away from any decent railway action unless garbage trains are your thing. Not complaining, but I miss the whine of a Helga pulling a trippy with a load of flat wheels at 11:45pm.But not anymore. The last time I looked, Australia has fewer than five decent, live streaming, webcams. We are lagging the world, even the USA. I have since happened upon two sites Virtual Railfan (virtualrailfan.com) and Rail Stream (https://railstream.net). Both are brilliant!
Virtual Railfan has 81 camera at 50 locations, covering 25 states and 22 railroads. It will come as no surprise to readers to learn that so far I have satisfied myself with the 15+ free cameras, although I am seriously thinking about upgrading. Subscriptions equal the cost of a Netflix subscription,so wifey may be a disappointed very shortly because we don't need both.
I will admit that I have never heard of some of these locations, but boyo, the trains. I started in the terrific town of Flagstaff, even sorted the local scanner so I am a bit ahead of the action. It is a bit gritty, but BNSF rocket through here about every 15 minutes. This screen shot shows a little consist - up to five units regularly work through, with mid-train helpers and pushers too. Amtrak turns up here when it wants to.
I have since moved to the mid-west, to places like Fort Madison with its preserved steamy watching double stacks roll by.
Viewing Kansas City got more interesting this week when some auto-racks derailed on the overhead bridge. No pontiacs were injured in the preparation of this blog. Heere's another screenshot, again with two BNSF locos. I fluffed the screenshot of seven Norfolk Southerns locos, showing that my actual rail-fanning photography traits are transferable to the virtual world.There are many things this world lacks... two in particular are diamonds and street running. I am getting my fill of both. Two diamonds I have been watching are at La Planta in Florida and Deschler, Ohio. Here is the latter, keeping with my BNSF theme. Now, street running and, more relevantly, the perils of street running. La Grange is a lovely looking place, especially when CSX work to the nearby Ford Motor plant. A couple of nights ago one such working took place.This train rolled into La Grange at 7:51am last Thursday morning, local time, just as the town was coming to life. When the last car rolled past 42 minutes later, the locals got their town back.Anyway, it is time to get back to train watching, this time in Galesburg. It doesn't quite equal sitting in your backyard, but it is better than watching the weeds grow.Cheers,
Don
