NS Shops, Roanoke Virginia
Our pic of the day today is from Roanoke, VA. I went to visit relatives in 2008 and went to downtown Roanoke to check out the shops. There was a bridge between two buildings from which you could watch the trains come and go. This pic is directed towards the shops and you can see the sign on the left. The transportation museum was closed since it was Sunday so I didn’t get to visit it but it was still worth it to go check it out even though it was quite cold.
Cameron, NC Defect Detector
One of the things you will hear on RTP Railfan radio is defect detectors going off. On the CSX line at MP 168.3 there is a defect detector that my radio picks up. This transmission usually just transmits a “no defects” voice but sometimes you will hear a problem such as a hotbox defect or dragging defect. Today’s picture of the day is a defect detector near Cameron, NC on the CSX S-Line. Notice the “mat’s” along the rails, these are for detecting dragging objects from the cars.
I mentioned we went to Spencer NC to visit the NC Museum of Transportation. While there I came across the Raleigh CTC board for the CSX line that runs from Raleigh to Hamlet. How cool was that.
Raleigh to Hamlet CTC Control Board
We often go walking near Bonsal and I know all these places up and down this line. Just to be able to see them on the CTC board was very interesting. I plan on having an article on this soon. Here is a teaser pic!
Roundhouse and Engines at MoT
The other day my wife and I went to Spencer, NC to see the NC Museum of Transportation. I was amazed at all the things had had there, especially related to railroading. Many different types of engines and cars, all of which were being renovated. We spent 2 hours alone in the roundhouse and I still didn’t read and see everything. We also didn’t ride the train there or the roundhouse. I”m going to hit these things when I get back. Not only that, but you are along the NCRR mainline right beside the museum and I heard plenty of trains going by. This place will require a weekend in the future to railfan.
A buddy of mine, Mike, sent me this picture along the old Southern line north of Raleigh, NC. Said he was wearing clothes that resembled police at the time so they slowed down to check him out but then went on when they realized he was just taking a picture. I wonder if those guys are ever suprised when people come out of the woods to grab a pic. I do it all the time!
I read an interesting article on Six Revisions about whether a designer should know HTML and CSS or not. One of the difficult things for me is to have the creativity to design a nice looking website. I’m more of a programmer than a designer but I still think that if you are developing web pages you should know html and css. I’m not saying that you should be an expert but at least know the basics of whats required to markup a page designed in photoshop.
Did an update of the RTP Railfan site with a picture that has attachments. I might do a few of these over the next few weeks. Hopefully I can do some railfanning and get some new content. I would like to go to Spencer, NC and visit the NC Transportation Museum. That would probably have a lot of cool stuff to look at and it looks like a good railfanning location. Happened to be in Waxhaw, NC this weekend and there is a ton of traffic that seems to run around 9PM at night through town.
You can tell because I don’t do anything with my webpages during the summer. Too much stuff going on outside. In the fall/winter I’m back indoors again because its dark outside so its back to webpage design. This year I’ve started the web design certificate program at Wake Tech so I hope it helps enhance my skills. I also want to work more on my RTP Railfan site. I’m thinking of incorporating weekly pictures that I design in photoshop. Here is one as a sample. We will see how that works out.
So I recently started to get back into picking stocks and obviously today was not the day to do it. I bought Tellabs this morning and it immediately crashed. What good luck I have.
Developing a website is a lot of work, and as they say “content is king.” It takes a lot of time to come up with this content and for one person this is difficult. This is even more true when you work a full time job and have a family. A good website I found online is http://www.sixrevisions.com. This site gives its viewers some good articles on the creation of websites and providing good content. Just something to keep in mind if your trying to start a web community.
