Set up a railcam page on this blog

Flagstaff, AZ July 2016

This is one of the few times you will see a page here. Just think back in 2005 when I starnted this blog the thought of pages would've been unthinkable. In fact pages weren't available until 2010 so for quite a while pages were unthinkable.

Anyway, I wanted to share two live cams on this page which is to be called - Railcam. A service called Virtual Railfan has a YouTube channel that features several livecams around the country for the benefit of railfans who like to watch trains roll by.

Because I like to see Amtrak trains I chose the two cities from where these webcams operate - La Plata, Missouri & Flagstaff, Arizona - because these are the two stops for Amtrak's Southwest Chief (SWC). On the page you can expect to find a schedule for the SWC and a train tracker also. Both will help you determine when you'll see SWC trains arrive at these respective stations.

My two SWC trips were 11 years apart in 2005 & 2016. They both were memorable trips as it's not often that I see the great plains, the prairie, and the southwest desert. The most memorable and unique in all the years I've taken the train occurred in 2016

In 2016 after arriving in LA at the architecturally significant LA Union Station we stayed in the LA area for no more than two days before moving on to Las Vegas by bus. This was part of the plan by my family and actually there was no plan we were planning it as we go. After at least two nights in Las Vegas we left for the Grand Canyon.

We spent the day at the Grand Canyon having arrived there via a tourbus and then from there we spent the night in Flagstaff, Arizona. We got on board a westbound SWC in the wee hours of the morning to return home.

While I don't want to ever not have a plan to go from city to city on vacation - i.e. Las Vegas or Grand Canyon - this is something I'm looking forward to in the near future. Especially if I can afford a sleeper onboard the train.