Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Kevin. On an empty hopper train on a windy day, the drag on those things is unreal. Ive gone down a couple of grades on our line either coasting, or having to use a little bit of power on a windy day, where normally I would have to use a touch of braking.
Kitten, dont worry about the questions. Ask away. There are people from all different walks of life here. You will almost always get an answer from someone about anything on this list.

Hi, I said I'm new. Only been signed up here for 3 days. Met someone working on a ship last year. Just been following his ship mostly. Been watching more since I'm learning more about it.
The funny part; I never knew people lived on ships to work. Never thought about it. When we met, took him 3 days to make me understand that he wasn't driving home after his shift. LOL
Now I Love looking at all the ships I can. They are so beautiful!

Welcome aboard, this is a good group and they are very knowledgeable on many topics, feel free to post anything transportation/regionally related and someone usually has the answer. Steve, why "parachutes"?

Andy & Castaway, Thanks for telling me 2 ways to try to get pics from cams. I will try tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me. LOL
Steve B, Thanks for being so nice. I gather you are an engineer. Interesting. Guess this is not the place for train questions.
Thanks guys.

Boatkitten, to do a screen grab from the other cam (there is no "snap" tool with it), click the "print screen" button on your keyboard. The takes a picture of what you see on the screen. Then open up Paint or Photoshop or something else and paste (Ctrl+V) it in the program. From there, you can crop it and save it. Hope this helps!

Dont fret Kitten, everyone was new to boatwatching at one time or another, myself included. I still mess up. And dont worry about the boxcar comment. I still have people ask me if I drive the train, even though there is not a steering wheel up there...lol. As for the hoppers, most of us, at least on the line I run on out of chicago, just call them "buckets". Or on a windy day, when you have an empty train of them, they are "parachutes".

On the Sandusky cam click on the "Snap" button on the lower right.

This will open a new window with the capture. Then right click and choose "Save Picture As" save to your computer and then use the upload attachment feature here.

I've enjoyed the captures people have been sending here. I'd ask any of the webcam viewers to continue and even expand to any time you catch a boat on the webcams save and post it here. It's neat for those of us that don't seem to be on at the right time!

Thanks Castaway. I don't know how to do a screen grab, but maybe I can find it in my computer book.
To wlbblw; Sorry, New to this. Will try to remember that they are hoppers.
Thanks.

Boxcars? Ouch! Those are hoppers!

-B in B

If you go to the main page of Boatnerd.com and click on the Links button there is a webcam section, listed by geographic location.

what webcam?

Oh, you were on the cam. The Register cam doesn't save photos, so you have to take a screen grab and save the photo with editing software.

The Jackson Street pier, where you saw people fishing, is probably the best vantage point to see the coal dock. There might be a couple of places you could walk nearer to it, but I haven't checked them out.

Hi, Watched it on cam all morning. Could see really well though. Saw some pic.s taken off cam, but can't figure out how to do that myself. That's the second time I've watched them load coal there on live cam. Wish I were there! Saw some people fishing there nearby though, so I'm sure you could watch in person.

Did you watch it live, or was it on the webcam? If it's live, I'd love to see pictures. Do you have access to a good viewing place?

Just watched the Herbert Jackson load coal at Sandusky. I love to watch the loader pick up those boxcars. I've only been boat watching for several months, so I'm just fascinated by all of it. Have rally been enjoying the beauty of the ships. Now I think the Jackson is going to Zug Island.