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I told Jim the other day that I was going to drive up to Wassaic, NY to see if the old coal drop or trestle was still there in front of the power house. I must be getting old because I forgot how the coal was off loaded. This was in 1970 that’s my only defense. My wife told me that she downloaded the free satellite photo program Google Earth the other day and to try it. What a great program. I flew 806 feet above the Wassaic power house and could see that the old coal siding was still there. Now I’ll definitely have to drive up and take some photos. This enables rail fans to research an area before driving there. You can even make a movie of your fly over. I think this is a great tool for rail fans.
I use to subscribe to it, but to get real close it's to blurry. I was told if you own a business that you can get a diff. version that gets you right down at ground level.
Larry I don’t think you have to subscribe to it any more. You just download the program to your computer. I just signed my retirement papers today so I’ll be doing a lot of rail fanning this summer. My idea was to first view the 60 mile upper Harlem train bike trail with Google Earth and than drive to the sites that looked the most interesting. Things like the turn table at Chatham, is that still there? I’ll zoom in later tonight and find out. That’s what it’s good for, some research before you make the 60 mile drive.
I have used it a few times just for fun. Could see my trucks at the yard and my car in the driveway. I think its limited to a specific sight level for privacy and US safety concerns.
the basic version is free, the hi-res version costs (and individuals can get it, you just have to pay). Realize that it will show what was there WHEN the pic was taken, but it can be out of date.
Google Earth is satellite photography, Google Streetview (?) is the one that takes pics from your street. It is perfectly legal to take pics from public spaces and post them anywhere. A public street is a public place, privacy and security have nothing to do with it.
The kind of detail I’m looking for is, for example I just noticed there’s a road that goes under the siding. That could only mean it’s a coal trestle. The power house must have been converted to oil at some time in the past by the look of the large blue tank in the photo.
I think it will be fun just to see what type construction method they used for this trestle compared to the Harlem Valley one 20 miles down the road. The program is only good to locate from the sky and than go there.
I use it all the time, and I look up places I have been to or lived in my life. When I was a kid I lived in Italy and there was a high speed train (Rapido?) that ran behind our house every day and night, and I looked up the tracks and followed them all over the country. Great stuff, saw my old house, boy were those tracks close, and brought back a lot of memories. The downside is I am concerned about national security, for instance I can see the tunnel entrance to NORAD in Colorado. Maybe no big deal, but you can see airbases and other landmarks.
Google earth has different resolution levels, depending on the strategic and economic requirement for any place on earth to be imaged at a given level of resolution. If you go into the Rockies, for example, much of it will be of poor quality. Go to your back yard, assuming you are not out in the boonies, but say in a good sized town, the resolution will be considerably better.
I use it to get the exact locations of buildings in the switching yard I am modelling. When copying a prototype it works great. You can see where every building and track is.
airbases are one thing, but many more sensitive areas are blocked already. Everyone who wants to know where the entrance is to NORAD already knows. Google Earth hasn't divulged anything that isn't already known.
From a national security perspective, the most revealing thing on Google Earth or maps.live is the detailed look at our electrical infrastructure. For all the uproar over "hackers" getting into the computers, which isn't going to happen, the electrical grid is out in the open and has virtually no protection. For example, I know the exact three towers to blow up to black out northern Califirnia for at least five days. Anyone who has worked in the industry can look at these aerials and figure out the same thing, and that includes hostile interests. I'm actually rather surprised it hasn't happened yet since there's almost no risk in doing so.
There's a lot more than just powerlines exposed on those--gas lines, oil pipelines--even LPG refineries and who knows what all else----but then, the information for a lot of stuff was even on things like topo maps
But then--those who hate will continue on regardless---
Google Earth has been a great resource for me to map out how a road curves near a building, how roads merge, the dimensions and relationships of buildings to each other. For detail I still gotta get in the car with the digital cam and go there myself.
