John, we could post videos to our accounts on the "old" RailImages, so I'm sure Charlie incorporated that same feature into this system. I've never uploaded a video, but I'm sure one of our Anointed Ones on High, i.e. Charlie, Ken, etc., can give you instructions and lead you through the process.
We did have video uploading. But there was a file size limit. I can't think of anyone who has tried this new software as yet. Most folks just do YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Under this message reply box, right side, "Upload A File" may do it. Then you'd link it in with the "Media" button above this box, which looks like a couple of film frames.
See, I told you one of the Anointed would respond...thanks Ken. OK, so I'm just an "educated donkey".....
Since my camera only has a very short video time function and it is a small layout section I should be able to get a nice little video of the power running the incline. At the scale low speed of the Shays the lower main is traveled in about a minute and one half. The incline is about half that distance and a test attempt earlier today seems to be able to cover about that before the camera limit is reached. But for the meanwhile I will be concentrating on redoing that lower main crossover and passing siding and tweaking the running performance. Next big ticket purchases are going to be a wheel cleaner and another track cleaning car that I can tow behind a couple of locos. While that power Atlas car is nice it is severely limited on this layout because of width and the fact that it is so low slung. So it will be a little while more before I can post a short entertaining clip of the Felines in hot pursuit of the Shays climbing the incline with me in the background screaming no, no.
Paying the track gang a little overtime for some Sunday work. When I installed the lower mainline I was thinking in the future and half in the present so the alignment would have been right for the station track if hooked up to the rest of the layout but not right as a stand alone for the current time since the outer track would have been the main then and not the inner track as the main is currently configured. So I ripped out the Peco St-6s and started installing the Peco ST-5s. And yes there will be a turnout right after leaving the tunnel and coming off the curve. Another so called rule violation will be that there will now end up a turnout on the bridge. I have to take a Dremel to one end of the bridge to fit the ST-5 and take out a bit of minimal plastic that prevents the turnout from sitting flat and gives room for the switch lever to be thrown. However neither of the changes will affect the operations. The layout is slow speed operation with passenger limited to 45 SMPH and freight limited to 30 SMPH. Plus yard limits start at the tunnel exit and speeds in the yard are limited to 10 SMPH. And slow speed equals far less, if any derailments, with time taken on laying the track right. The bridge was built with sufficient width to be able to handle the turnout. In test running this layout the only few issues I have found was tweaking a few clearances, mostly by trimming some trees, and a few spots where I just got the curvature a bit too tight. The couple of older turnouts I tried to be able to use ended up being problems and they went into circular file #13. So the time taken to test sections of track as they were laid with a loco and a 9 volt battery have paid off nicely. The same loco was used to establish structure clearance Again the changes went smooth so far basically due to having used the water based adhesive for the ballast. A simple soaking with my spray bottle with a drop of detergent in the water quickly loosened the glue so that I was removing track and ballast in about ten minutes or less after soaking. Hopefully after supper I will get the bridge work done to accommodate the turnout, and by tomorrow I hope to be finally replacing the scenic work where needed and back to track cleaning. 100_4549-1 by John Moore posted Jul 12, 2015 at 1:55 PM
You certainly don't sit still very long. I like the speed with which you act after an idea comes into mind.
Having spent a lifetime having to make split second decisions lest a entire building ended up in a rubble pile, or laying under a desk in a building figuring out which wire to cut on a partially detonated device, I just got in the habit of being able to quickly process my thoughts and act. Now years later it is still with me and essentially part of me.
Since I am totally new to this and basically it is the blind leading the blind operation I will see if this actually works since I have had all sorts of issues. 100 45504 - YouTube by John Moore posted 2 minutes ago Postscript. Well I'll be danged it actually worked. Video shot this AM after having one doozy of a battle getting current to run like I wanted. One little 44 tonner running around another setting at the station. Certainly not the best in quality and I had to go around the proverbial Robin Hood's barn just to get a format that YouTube would except. The last of the short clip has Deekus watching the mini meece run and me watching her closely since she can instantaneously explode from that position an wreak havoc. Finally solved the current issue and can now use the outside track. Hmm that was three switches down one up and the Pecos on the main aligned thataway.
It appears that you had supervision.... It must feel great having the layout now at the operable stage.
Well Murphy raised his head again. One of the turnouts I had reinstalled is giving me occasional derailments on the straight through alignment but not set for the bypass. Nag dabbit and Nottafinga. Tired of messing with this stuff. For 2 cents, a song and a dance, and a cheap beer, I would gather all this up and drop it in the dumpster. However with the main aligned for the bypass, and aligned to the upper level, I marched a consist up the grade at a good clip for your viewing pleasure. Six percent with a short seven percent at the crest, 40 foot cars and double headed power with a pusher. Again was a PIA to get this short video up. Probably a lot to do with the software I have. 100 45551 - YouTube by John Moore posted A moment ago
John, can you upload your videos directly to your media (RailImages) account as you're currently doing with your photos? That would eliminate the PIA steps of going through YouTube.
My photos go first to Picasa then to one of my computer albums and from there to rail images. Videos downloaded on Picasa don't seem to be liked by YouTube at all and I haven't as of yet found a way to load direct from Picasa to RailImages. So I end up going from Picasa to Windows and Windows to YouTube which the tube seems to like a lot better than anything else coming from Windows. Back when I had done the other couple I believe I was still using the Kodak program which is no longer supported by Kodak and is dead on my puter. Looking at the media uploading box there is listed the formats that are supported or allowed to load media to RailImages so I am stuck in having to transfer stuff twice as far as video is concerned. The first to get something that the Tube accepts and then to Railimages. Picasa is my program to edit, crop, enhance color or light etc. and does have a video editing function but it just doesn't seem to work straight off. I had another Peco turnout so the one that started giving me fits was removed and replaced. Back to flawless operations again for now. Take that Murphy. Maybe by the end of the week I can start working on the backdrop at last, and I can examine at my leisure the turnout that started giving me fits, while I restore the scenic material removed earlier.
John, my deepest sympathy with your convoluted video process. I'm sure there's a simpler way, but until then.... If At First You Do Succeed, Try To Hide Your Astonishment.
Hey ask me about a synergistic reaction or about the effects of methyl ethyl deathyl and I am fine. I know my way well around a chemistry and biochemistry lab. Ask me how a computer works or how electrons get from A to B and forget it. When I had an investigation that looked like it was leaning toward electrical I always called in one of the resident experts. For whatever reason when I try to open a YouTube video the puter locks up and all sort of death notices start appearing about internet explorer. Does that for three attempts then everything is fine. I have been known to have called Mr. Gates lots of names other than Mr. Gates. Other than a semi lousy Kodak product for a camera I do reasonably well at processing my photos, reducing their size some, and getting them in my albums. I am not much for the high tech geegaws because when the $%#@ hits the fan they are usually the first thing that fails, and has notably on several occasions. Have a cell phone that stays off 90% of the time, and an old landline in the house that works when the cell doesn't. Lose power and I have kerosene lamps and small butane stoves to cook on plus I can do three courses on a charcoal grill when needed. That is why my layout will always be as low tech as possible. I am a reasonably happy Neanderthal and amazed when something does work for a change.
Actually it was all working just fine except for realigning that set of turnouts for the passing siding. And even that worked just fine at first until I set about solving the electrical feed issue to the outside lower main. It was the third reinstall of that turnout where I did something who knows what. But I finally just replaced the turnout with a brand new one out of my track box. And my electrical issue wasn't an electrical issue but a learning curve issue. Just had to work out the right sequence of switch activation on the block control plus the right activation of the Peco turnouts to route the current. That's is the reaction to the word no look she gets. How dare you tell the Duchess Deekus, Sister of King Wesa, aka the Big Guy, to stop her pursuit of mini meeces. This is royalty you are addressing knave. Awoke this AM and strolled into the workshop and train room/office/man cave to find a small tree on the floor. Haven't the foggiest idea from whence it came since it was surgically extracted and nothing else disturbed. Unless it jumps out at me from whence it came I may not even mess with putting it back. I will busy myself today with installing my Atlas spade connectors and dressing up the wiring and labeling the selector switches for the blocks. Then I will turn my attention to reinstalling the ballast and scenic materials and some track cleaning where needed. Maybe I will be able to break out one of the Masonite pieces to measure for access holes for the permanent backdrop and cut them out to prepare to mount the first section of backdrop later this week. The highway bridge that I had bashed out of a Atlas rail bridge had been damaged earlier by a hit from my Dunlap as I leaned over the layout has been repaired and is now ready to reinstall. However I will wait to place it and a few vehicles on the roadway until I manage to acquire and install the front short Lexan shield. Running the Bmann 44 tonners extensively during most of the testing I have determined that Bmann's excuse for a coupler is a piece of crap and they are slated to have MTs installed and I have some coupler issues with my scratch built Class A Climaxes that need to be addressed also. Plus every car that goes on the layout will be gone over well to insure that couplers work and are the right height, and trucks swivel freely. So I have plenty to keep me busy for months coming. And at the rate it has been raining here for the past several months I am probably going to end up inside more than out. Flash flood warnings out again today. We could have sent half of this water to California and solved the drought issue in a few days.
Rotating the Keystone pipeline 90 degrees and lengthening it a bit would help solve that problem. Though rabid environmentalists would find some issue to block this.
Well with way over 20 inches of rain just this month in areas we have plenty to ship. Hmm consists of tank cars on the layout shipping water to California. I have had so much rain that a couple of plants in my garden have literally drowned. Half baked article appeared on the WWW news threads about a mini ice age coming that has since been debunked. But it still is running around in my mind. Maybe the next section of layout transitioning toward the logging area putting a glacier in a narrow valley with a stream flowing from it to the ocean. Now modeling that would be a challenge to get the effects of ice. Snow is commercially available and so easy, but ice with it's semi transparency Hmm. Maybe pieces of jagged plastic with sheets of Water effects castings draped over them. Or do the glacier face with some clear casting resin in a rubber mold. I have awhile to mull this one over before the next section.
Don't forget to add a station sign to your "to do" list. The station is such a dot on the map that your visitors might miss it (n scale or otherwise). I'd lean toward a casting for a glacier face. It makes it easier to embed a frozen yeti in it.
