Western Railroad Discussion > Sunset Route Google Earth Overheads

1) For those who have Google Earth, they've just put in a new overhead of the Marsh Station Road rail line straightening between Mescal and Vail, AZ. Photo date 20 June 2011 (supersedes a 2005 pic), and a distinct improvement. Shows the ROW cleared for the new track.

2) From photo dated 20 May 2011, one can see newly laid double track extending east from Casa Grande, AZ. From Casa Grande all the way to Tucson, the line has been graded, and viaducts for the second track have been installed across the entire segment. Couple of highlights: ballast regulator operating about a mile west of where I-10 passes over the railroad, west of Casa Grande; a bulldozer-pulled track laying contraption (sets down ties, threads rail, and pulls rail cars over just laid down track) some two miles east of Eloy a few hundred yards east of a viaduct that crosses an irrigation canal; what I think may be a trainload of concrete ties just east of the junction at Picacho, where the line to Phoenix veers off to the north.

Thanks for the heads-up. Pays to check Google Earth periodically
for updates to your favorite rail locations. Sometimes they're improved,
sometimes not. Heavily shadowed areas 'are' often corrected to better
time-of-day views, and with better resolution.

Yarddogh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the heads-up. Pays to check Google
> Earth periodically
> for updates to your favorite rail locations.
> Sometimes they're improved,
> sometimes not. Heavily shadowed areas 'are' often
> corrected to better
> time-of-day views, and with better resolution.

Sometimes. My two personal gripes with Google Earth are that too many main line segments are five or more years old, and the quality of the photographs are uneven -- some are amazingly clear and others, blurry or grainy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/11 16:46 by billio.

billio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yarddogh Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Thanks for the heads-up. Pays to check Google
> > Earth periodically
> > for updates to your favorite rail locations.
> > Sometimes they're improved,
> > sometimes not. Heavily shadowed areas 'are'
> often
> > corrected to better
> > time-of-day views, and with better resolution.
>
> Sometimes. My two personal gripes with Google
> Earth are that too many main line segments are
> five or more years old, and the quality of the
> photographs are uneven -- some are amazingly clear
> and others, blurry of grainy.


Some of us can remember when none of this technology even existed. Be thankful for small favors and what we have today.