I was just messing around on Windows Live Local powered by Virtual Earth and noticed that they now have a birds eye view selection. I clicked on it and... whoah! Pretty cool! Well, lo' n' behold I found the rail yard and discovered this roundhouse in a major United States city. I'm wondering if anybody out there knows where this is at? I will wait a little while and if nobody gets it, I will give clues.
Mystery screen capture fun.
- Thread starter TrainNut
- Start date
It is in the east chicago, gary IN area. I have never been there but I shouldask my friends that work for the csx if they go through there on trips to chicago.:thumb:
Yeah the one in Bayshore yard (SF) is abandoned, but still standing, although half the roof is missing due to hobo-induced fire. 
So... city?
So... city?
MilesWestern said:Yeah the one in Bayshore yard (SF) is abandoned, but still standing, although half the roof is missing due to hobo-induced fire.
So... city?
That, and the city lacks any intermodal yards and has no trackage from BNSF or UP or Amtrak service...
While we're playing "eye in the sky" ...
North Little Rock's Union Pacific yard, including the largest locomotive maintenance shop ... in the world (or so I'm told).
And a close up of the hump and many many rows of track.
In the second picture you can see the hump. Starting from the left edge of the image find the two gray roofed engines pushing the one brown car with the road going underneath them. THAT is the hump. The car they're pushing is about 10 yards from free rolling. Continuing right (east) you'll see a brown car free rolling down the hill toward the first of the turnouts at the bridge over the creek. After it fans into eight sets of track there are much darker sections of track which are the pnumatic brakes. After that each track begins splitting into eight more sets of track, for a total of sixty four lanes. You may also notice the pair of brown cars rolling together in the middle of all the track. And of course there are entire trains parked along both sides. I believe the southern most track is the throughway.
Having spent an a few hours one day right in the middle of it all I can say it is MASSIVE, and noisy. Something I would enjoy modeling in HO scale, but only if I could do it in its entirety, which is not likely to ever happen
North Little Rock's Union Pacific yard, including the largest locomotive maintenance shop ... in the world (or so I'm told).
And a close up of the hump and many many rows of track.
In the second picture you can see the hump. Starting from the left edge of the image find the two gray roofed engines pushing the one brown car with the road going underneath them. THAT is the hump. The car they're pushing is about 10 yards from free rolling. Continuing right (east) you'll see a brown car free rolling down the hill toward the first of the turnouts at the bridge over the creek. After it fans into eight sets of track there are much darker sections of track which are the pnumatic brakes. After that each track begins splitting into eight more sets of track, for a total of sixty four lanes. You may also notice the pair of brown cars rolling together in the middle of all the track. And of course there are entire trains parked along both sides. I believe the southern most track is the throughway.
Having spent an a few hours one day right in the middle of it all I can say it is MASSIVE, and noisy. Something I would enjoy modeling in HO scale, but only if I could do it in its entirety, which is not likely to ever happen
LoudMusic, thanks, that was pretty cool. The point of this was simply for me to share what I thought was a cool site that could be used to the benefeit of rail fans. As an afterthought, I remembered coming across a "mystery challenge" similar to this on another site that everyone seemed to have a lot of fun with and I thought perhaps it could be fun here as well. Perhaps I should have structured it differently. Yes, one of you did guess it using the shotgun effect and it seems Brian knows which one. Perhaps the last blatant clue will help to narrow it down to one answer but you will have to know something about your geography.Brian Schmidt said:
Whose home to the space needle and gets around 40 inches of rainfall per year? Also, check out the map, as it may help to see this in relation to nearby bodies of water. Look for the little red pushpin with a number 1 on it for the location of the roundhouse.
P.S. Brian, how'd you figure it out? Here's your moment to shine... claim your fame... state the answer. Hmmm, went to high school with a Brian Schmidt.
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If I'd have spent half as much time thinking as I did complaining originally I'd have had it a lot sooner.
I figured from the picture that it was probably a BNSF facility and that little red engine-looking-thing tipped me off it was probably in the Pacific Northwest. Then I remembered seeing in a magazine a long time ago a model railroad diesel shop that looked exactly like that. I then dug through some BNSF track charts for the Northwest Division until I found a match.
I figured from the picture that it was probably a BNSF facility and that little red engine-looking-thing tipped me off it was probably in the Pacific Northwest. Then I remembered seeing in a magazine a long time ago a model railroad diesel shop that looked exactly like that. I then dug through some BNSF track charts for the Northwest Division until I found a match.
Congrats guys. Yep, Seattle. Since we get little to no rain down here in Phoenix, I was browsing around an area that gets plenty of rain and thus that's how I came across that roundhouse in Seattle. If I had the time to sit down and do this over, I would have given you more thoughtful, in depth clues. As it was, I was flying by the seat of my pants. What the hey.... hope you still had fun. Maybe next time, we can do it more like a "20 questions" format. The more I think about it, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Yes, lets. That was fun guessing where. Perhaps we can take a historic photo, and do a WHERE and WHEN...? 
Windows Local Live is a great resource. I use it to check out the track in the area of NC where I live.