Using Google Earth to view the rail yards! omg!


I think after September 11th, a lot of people succumbed to the fear that anything and everything was on the table to be hit. Fear is often irrational.

Google Earth is cool, but I lean more towards Bing Maps. Not only do you have the feature of birdseye view, but in many places I've looked, the imagery is more complete, even over rural areas.

On Google Earth, they update the pictures every so often, so use the overlay feature to determine when the photos are taken. As you can see, most imagery is collected in the winter months, where foliage is minimal, and skies are clearer to combat the affects of haze and humidity. On Bing Maps, I have not found the feature, but a general knowledge of the area you are looking at will help you determine within a year or two of when the photos were taken.

While a useful too, for good guys like us, or bad guys, all the high-resolution, high quality imagery does not substitute boots on the ground. I've found many places look very different at eye level, and sometimes some neighborhoods don't appear as benign as they do from space. So, unless you are trained to observe certain things, most of what we see (and the general public) is just a pretty picture.

Oh, and to contribute here, I found the CSX hump yard in Nashville pretty neat.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Motley said:
Ya the technology is incredible. I wonder why they say there is a "security issue" viewing train tracks? They gonna start blowing trains up now, airliners are not enough.:mad:
Click to expand...

As has been seen in Russia, trains make very good targets for terrorists. They run in remote areas with no security and setting up IED's is easy and risk-free. I think what's going on with airplanes now is a simple diversion. Whatever the real attack will be, it will be spectacular.
 
UP2CSX said:
As has been seen in Russia, trains make very good targets for terrorists. They run in remote areas with no security and setting up IED's is easy and risk-free. I think what's going on with airplanes now is a simple diversion. Whatever the real attack will be, it will be spectacular.
Click to expand...

Hate to say it but, I think you are right. They aint as stupid as we think they are.

But back to the trains, I traced the NS route from Centralia, IL to their yard in St. Louis. I new the rural route pretty good but when it got into Belville I was last after that. I also found the reminants of an old roundhouse in East St. Louis. I never saw one in real life so it always felt like they only existed in faraway fairytale lands.

I wish there was a place to historical photos similar to them, I always dream about the golden age of America when farmers where family sized and rails were everywhere :(
 
http://www.historicaerials.com/

The coverage is rather limited, and the resolution isn't as good as Google Earth or Bing Maps, but it is neat seeing some stuff before the Interstate system.

One thing that people can do is go down to the county courthouse, and go either to the registrar's or tax assessor's office to look at the plat books. In addition to plat books, many places have blue-line aerial photos (sometimes 1:400) of many areas.
 
I like to use these maps for checking out the larger trestles and railroad bridges and viaducts out there. The Rockville bridge in PA is a neat one.
 
I thought about it the other day and pulled up Google Earth to follow the old Great Northern route from Spokane, over the Cascades and on to the coast. This is the section that I want to someday model if I ever get to. I have a lot of pictures of this area and know what I want to have on my layout. There are some really special areas that I think would look great.

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top