[San Juan]

I found a website that allowed me to upload the high detail format of the cab ride video of our layout. If you've visited our website you've probably seen the YouTube version. Nice and easy to do, but unfortunately when it was uploaded, YouTube compressed the clip a bunch hurting the quality.

This new site seems ok, but it also seems a bit buggy to when the screen turns white. Scrolling the mouse or keyboard on the screen brings the image back. Not sure if it's my browser (Firefox) or if this buggyness effects all browsers.

Anyway if you don't have much to do and would like to ride our layout, take a trip via this high quality video link:


Cab Ride Video

 

[bryanj]

Best quality internet video I've seen ! Crystal clear

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Beautiful... no problems viewing, I do have a high bandwidth connection. The video was averaging 1.536 megabits per second... T1 rate... that's pretty high... my connection will typically do 14 megabits/second, so most of the video "came down" in the beginning...

Regards, Greg

 

[Torby]

Thanks for the ride!

(We have 2 T1 lines here, and it played without a hitch.)

 

[San Juan]

Looks like even this site compressed the file after a while

So not as clear as the original, but still better then YouTube.

 

[Gary Armitstead]

Matt,

I've watched your video before on YouTube and this is much better. Thank you for the ride! My son and I are heading out to Denver tonight from Lax to check out the Museum in Golden and do some sight-seeing. Expected to be 8 degrees tomorrow in Golden! This California kid is going to freeze his butt off! BTW, which sound card are you using in your engine? If Phoenix, which sound file? Maybe #480? Thanks again for the ride.

 

[afinegan]

Try out vimeo HD too, regular vimeo was what all my professiona video photography friends used, and it is quite good but vimeo HD is very high quality, it does have to buffer on some connections due to quality of course.

http://www.vimeo.com/hd


It is worth a try.

 

[Randy Stone]

Great video Matt

What are the curve radius on your main line?

Some seem pretty tight.

 

[San Juan]

Gary,

The sound is Phoenix 2K2 called "DRGW". 12th on this page


I'm not sure which loco was recorded for this sound, but I like the whistle on this one the most of all the Phoenix D&RGW style sounds.

 

[San Juan]

Posted By rlvette on 12/19/2008 6:31 PM
Great video Matt

What are the curve radius on your main line?

Some seem pretty tight.


That's a great question. I'm not sure what the min radius is since all the rail was bent by hand (rail bender) to fit the terrain. I do know that none are tighter than an LGB 15000 since I used a piece as a minimum radius guide for yard tracks. And I made sure no sections got even close to as tight as a 15000. Our track is Llagas Creek code 250 nickel silver rail with their "narrow gauge" ties and SplitJaw stainless steel joiners.

Since the video was shot I've made some major line adjustments to ease the curvature and grades seen in the video. You might notice that there appears to be a slight down grade after the Goose meet. That has since been leveled. Also the curve right before the station on the loop has also been eased and the grade leveled. Before that all of our rolling stock worked fine except for an Accucraft C-16. It would sometimes derail on the tight loop curve mainly do to the super elevation I tried. The super elevation has since been removed, and the grade leveled. Haven't had any derailment problems since. I probably would not have done the line improvements if it hadn't been for an elk that trampled a section of rail. Since that had to be repaired I went ahead and did all of the other repairs I always thought about doing.





By the way, last summer is when these line improvements were done, but the video was shot 2 summers ago. Might be time to do another one.

 

[Ted Yarbrough]

Matt,
Great video! I am amazed at your work (as always). I felt like I was riding on the D&RGW!!!!!! Thanks for taking the time to share with us.

 

[San Juan]

Thanks Ted, your comment riding on the D&RGW made me feel good. That was the look we were after.

Still experimenting on how to post the clearest version, I tried the Vimeo and it seems to be the clearest. See what you think.

Cab Ride

 

[work4fil]

Matt,

This is one of my favorite videos. I get all giddy everytime I view it. This is just the type of "fun" I hope to achieve, even in spite of my "Garage Moments."

Thank you,

Fil

 

[Randy Stone]

Matt

I just watched the video again and it just great. Like Ted said, it reminds me of riding the train from Durango to Silverton and back. The best train ride and the best video yet!

 

[Dan Pierce]

Matt, thanks for the blip.tv info. I uploaded a snow plowing accident to this site.