Don't Miss These Updates!

 As we approach the new year I wanted to call people's attention to some internet resources that benefiting from updated content.  The first is the fantastic North American Interlockings archive that I have have featured before, but until i few months ago I assumed it was a somewhat static collection of personal photos, similar to John Roma's.  Well I couldn't have been more mistaken as there are near daily updates.  New photos and text explaining them are linked, by month, from the site navigation column, with the last three months showing.  I tried direct linking to previous months, but those pages seem to be taken down. 😢

In addition to that, the Trackside Photographer, well known for its coverage of signaling and classic interlocking technology, has resumed operations after a brief haitus.  One of my articles, an update of one I posted here about railroad signaling being repurposed, for grade crossing protection, was one of the first of the new batch. 

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas and a great new year.  If you find yourself with some free time over the next few months, make an effort to get out and get some photos of something that might not be around for much longer.

UPDATE: ALTO Tower Page Hi-Res Photos

So I took the time to re-process the photos from my 2004 trip to ALTO tower that formed the core of my 2011 blog post about the tower and its interior. The old photos had been edited for a 2004 web standard of 100-200k file sizes.  Although only taken on a 3MP camera, that still meant I could use the full resolution available without blowing up the page load time.

In addition, I streamed two photo processing sessions where I talked about the history of ALTO and the story of my visit to the tower along with all sorts of interesting factoids and hijinks.





Yeah that's right, I've getting into live streaming! Who says one can't squeeze content from a stone 😏

Site Update / Service Disruption

So I wanted to do a quick post about the state of the blog.  You may have noticed that a lot of the links and photos (at least more than usual) are broken.  This is because over the last 12 months I first lost my backup web hosting due to Chinese web crawlers and then lost my main web hosting due to a thermal event.  Fortunately I had had long since adopted a policy of using Google Photos to host the images presented directly on the pages, but some of my early essays relied entirely on the private server (along with all direct links).

Not a complete dumpster fire, yet...

So while my private web hosting is likely to be out of commission through Christmas or possibly January,  I am using the opportunity to go back through and convert all the major photo essays into using Google Photos.   I'm pretty much starting at 2011 and working back with the PRR Main Line Survey and METRA Tower Survey getting first priority.  I am also using this to fix any other problems with the pages like factual errors or omissions (for example on the Main Line Survey I completely forgot CP-UN).  I am NOT updating the pages to reflect current reality, they will remain creatures of their time.

Thank you for your patience.  I'm sure many long time viewers can remember similar outages in the past. We got through those and I'll get through this one.  Still, I could use another backup host so if anyone has  the ability to give me a free account on a webserver somewhere please send me a message ;-)

Also, if someone needs any particular page fixed sooner, again message me and I'll move it to the front of the line.  Thanks for all your support over the years, I really appreciate it!

Updates!

Alright, I have an fairly major update of my METRA BLUE ISLAND Tower page to announce.  I had an opportunity to visit Blue Island in December, 2015 and was able to add a good number of exterior tower photos as well as interlocking layout photos.  Please go and check it out.

I also recently lost my long time web hosting mirror.  You might remember the problems I was having a few years back with photo hosting.  I actually went and swapped some of my posts over to use the backup host.  I believe I was able to change them back, but the occasional photo might still link to the old, palter,org site so if you see any broken links pointing there, please let me know and I'll fix them post haste.

Updates!

I made some minor updates to two articles.  First I added a pair of new photos to the page on Conrail's Virtual Headed Dwarfs, one of which featuring a 5-lamp virtual headed high mast signal on the MILW main line in Wisconsin and the second a unique 2.5-lamp dwarf in Canada. 

Second I added a cab photo of a new Denver Silverliner V car showing its ACSES capable cab signal display to the Know Your Cab Signal Displays page.

Enjoy!

Photo Updates

I made some significant updates to two previous posts today.  The first is the port on the LIRR's VALLEY interlocking tower.  I just performed restoration on a batch of LIRR photos I took in 2003, some of which were used in that post.  Back in 2003 web hosting was still expensive and download speeds slow so the old versions of the photos were over processed and under sized.  I have not only corrected those problems, but also made the entire set available.   The album contains photos from the LIRR when back when all the signals were position light and railfan windows were still plentiful. Also included are vintage NEC signaling pics from before HUDSON tower was closed.

I also added a better photo of Amtrak's new cab signaling display unit to the post on Knowing your Cab Signal Displays.  In addition to that I fixed some of the temporarily non-functional photo links and made a few minor revisions..