The wonders of the "Bird's Eye View"

You can find the most interesting things on Windows Live Local!!!

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2& ... &encType=1

Anyone recognize these??

I see the west end of Goodman Street Yard, GP38-2 is east of the yard tower and it is tied to a string of cars? What am I missing?

In this view however, I see a CSX Office Special being hauled by a GP40.

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2& ... &encType=1

Now that is very odd.

If I I go to your linked photo and then click on the "East" view and then click back on the "North" view, the three car train in your linked photo disappears. Its not there.

But if I follow the mainline tracks to the east a few screens, and then scroll back to the west, the three car train in your linked photo re-appears.

well the north, east, west and south views are almost never taken at the same time for some reason. If you look alot of times they arent even taken during the same season!

And yes....that CSX special is what I was talking about. I didnt know what it was. Pretty cool that it got caught in the shot.

railfan87 wrote:well the north, east, west and south views are almost never taken at the same time for some reason.

because the plane is moving, they keep the camera stationary and fire off a bunch of shots in a line..a whole string of "norths"..then circle the plane back, do a long string of "souths", perhaps many miles long..then all the easts,
then west, etc..
keeps everything in a nice even line, and photos overlap neatly.

as opposed to spinning the camera in a circle to take N-S-E-W then another N-S-E-W, while the plane is moving forward...all your "Norths" might not line up as well that way..

actually..if you think about, the "spinning camera" could be used for North and South at the same time (while the plane is flying East-West)
or a long string of East sand Wests could be taken at the same time, while the plane is flying North-South...but it would be impossible to do NSEW-NSEW-NSEW is sequence.

Scot

when I 1st tried the different views of the original shot i noticed that there were only 2 cars next to the crew room and the Main st/N. Goodman st intersection was very quiet. Leading me tyo believe this was a Sunday with just an extra crew switching the yard. All 4 views show the same cars parked by the crew room. The CSX OCS train shot appears to have been taken on a different day even, and I believe it's not an OCS, but a track telemetry test train. An OCS would rate newer/special power vs. an aging GP-40. I then used the pan out feature and switched to dewitt yard and found it showed the engine house and service area still intact. A very old shot indeed.

FWIW, the last test train I saw was 2 cars with a GP40 leading one of the F40PH's. So I'm sure that's what this is, just pre-F40s.

They only have these super close color zooms for big city areas?

Scotty,

Virtual Earth images are satellite imagery, not photos from airplanes.

deezlfan wrote:Scotty,

Virtual Earth images are satellite imagery, not photos from airplanes.

the "map view" images are taken from satellites..

but the photos being discussed in this thread, the "birds eye view" photos, are taken from low-flying airplanes..not satellites.

Scot

Old Alco's never die they retire to North Collins, NY. I was looking on Local
Live and "found" the SB S units and the HH660. also is that the Pennsy
tender down there on one of the siding?

O-6-O wrote:Old Alco's never die they retire to North Collins, NY. I was looking on Local
Live and "found" the SB S units and the HH660. also is that the Pennsy
tender down there on one of the siding?

Whose line are these Alcos sitting on?

The "bird's eye" pictures in the greater Rochester area and other parts of the state are taken by Pictometry - the most recent set was done in April 2006... and they're doing more flyovers this year.

At work we have a full-blown Pictometry system which shows property line overlays, property owner, higher-res pictures than what you can get online, measuring tools, etc. What you get at http://local.live.com is a small subset of it. Very neat stuff.

nessman wrote:The "bird's eye" pictures in the greater Rochester area and other parts of the state are taken by Pictometry - the most recent set was done in April 2006... and they're doing more flyovers this year.

At work we have a full-blown Pictometry system which shows property line overlays, property owner, higher-res pictures than what you can get online, measuring tools, etc. What you get at http://local.live.com is a small subset of it. Very neat stuff.

How far south of Rochester are they planning on capturing?

I can tell that these pictures aren't current. I plugged in my address and the golf course that is now sitting behind me isn't there. Not even the bulldozers. So that makes it about 4 years old around my area.

This really does go back. I just checked out the Buffalo Airport and there is a Delta 727-200 parked at the gate. Delta pulled the 727 from Buffalo sometime in late 2002 or 2003.

I just check JFK and there is a NWA 747 that operated to Tokyo. NW pulled that flight at least 2 years ago. Unfortunately it doesn't go back far enough to see TWA.

Okay, back to the RR's.

The age of the photos varies widely with the area. I can tell that pictures of my house are from the past year. Live Local is a nice tool to have when trying to follow ROWs and when trying to find certain railroad interests