Railfan Technology > Can you set up your own (temporary) railcam?

Well, I tried this question a few years back, but maybe the technology is better now. 

I have permission to plant a remote camera from a landowner who has a trackside house a few miles away. The location is perfect for me:  If I had a remote camera at his location that I could communicate with by phone, I could easily drop what I'm doing and catch whatever train was coming by.  Ideally, the,camera would call me or text me with an image or two. I can easily reach the location to change batteries. 

Is this possible with current, off the shelf equipment?  Seems to me there would be a market out there for a remote system like this. 

The biggest drawback would be electric power. The landowner is fine with a camera on one of his trees, but doesn't want a power cord on the ground. 

Any suggestions?

I have no first hand experience, but it seems to me that a trail camera, as used by people who want to see wildlife and/or poachers on their land, would be ideal for this.

Best of luck!

- Arved

Arved Grass
Long Beach, WA

There's a couple of railcams using that style of set up right now. The one at Norden California uses a solar panel and batteries but during the winter goes off line with a depleted battery. Reading the chat info they apparently use Cell tower service.

There was a discussion about using the technique for a nearby installation but I wasn't part of the discussion. It may have been a purchasable set up, the descriptions vary and no cost was discussed but the idea appears to be available. There's also a huge market for wildlife on line cameras.

Trail cameras appear to be a good idea but the link between the camera and the Internet still needs to be defined, the cell tower idea for example. The main issue with live cams is the cost of Internet service which appears to have risen to the level of cell tower service, which would also be described as cell phone with a SIM card and a similar cost plan. YouTube is very viable for live cams and there are many tutorial videos on YT on how it's been done.

So it's technically available and already in use. Would suggest contacting the right Railcam set up. The cost idea is being covered by online contributions or the YouTube cash for video concept, which translates to having a popular view, not a onesey-twosey backyard favorite line.

hth.

+ should add to make it an exclusive private camera there it basically a security camera with a wireless link, or going full cell tower for the link. There's lots of hardware and instructions on yt for extending the Wi-Fi link but there's distance limitations. Perhaps check with nearby HAM operators for specifc location advise. There are some hardware and antenna options but also definite physics limatations.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/26 10:57 by TCnR.

Interesting to note that since my last post I'm getting some relevant YT videos on my Roku service about security cameras. One of the Videos shows B&H as a source for Security style cameras. Some of the cameras on the Videos are showing different options that I would like to check out, nothing glaringly obvious yet. They explain some of the common ' Ring Doorbell camera ' for example. There's also some Amazon services and others.

The Videos do note that the camera packages have issues with monitoring by the Company and other services. Something to keep in mind.

tne railcam fellow at norden is always on there chatting
should be able to PM him. his setup is not perfect, but pretty good.

If the place you want to install this has decent internet service already, I would consider installing a direct-burial Ethernet cable, like a Cat 6, to the tree where you want to put the camera.

Then, get a camera that utilizes Power Over Internet, or POE , to both power the camera, and carry the video signal. This eliminates the need for a separate power source at the camera location.

You would need a POE device, typically a switch, up at the router location.

I think that would be a more reliable setup than futzing around with wireless options.

The distance between the camera location and the router location where you put a POE switch might be an issue if it’s a long way.

There are some nice outdoor POE cameras that would work nicely, and aren’t too expensive. Of course if you want a fancier camera that zooms and adjusts, expect to pay more.

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