the ULTIMATE New York State aerial photo site!

I found the coolest site!
its an official New York state webpage..
VERY detailed areial photos!
and very good maps showing old ROW's too!
and they are very up to date..
the B&H in Cohocton is labeled LAL..

I discovered the urban areas have color photos, and the resolution is good down to .25 mile.
the "less urban" areas have B&W photos, and the resolution looks good only to .5 mile..
in both cases, you can still zoom in further, but then it just gets pixelated and unclear..
so for the color photos, just go up to .25 miles across the image.
(there is a scale at the bottom)
and for the B&W photos, stop at .5 mile..
the actual "object resolution" is nearly a foot!
cars are very clear.
a co-worker of mine was able to discern 2-foot concrete walkway stones in his back yard..and thats from SPACE!
amazing..
they have "blurred out" stragic sites, such as airports..for obvious reasons..but that shouldnt get in the way of railfanning much..
(it did blur out the R&S Brooks st. yard in Rochester though..but its right next to the airport..)

Here are some screen shots!
(Otto, if these are too wide, let me know and I will convert them to links..)
(do we have a size limit here?)

started out with the Rochester Goodman St yard:



check out the schoolbuses!
then I zoomed in to see if it was possible to actually identify a locomotive from space! (SD40-2 vs. GP38..that kind of thing..)
there were NO engines at the terminal!



next, I flew over to East Binghamton yard..
looks like a couple CP Sd40-2's are there..
and..HEY! whats up with that new turntable?
when did they build THAT!?
(I havent been there since 1987..)



slighty further east is the old DL&W roundhouse and turntable pit..
the pit and bridge are both clearly still there..



up to the Genesee Docks in Rochester..
the foundation blocks for the coal trestle are all visable..
(you can see even more by zooming in one more level)



as you zoom in, you hit a detailed map before you get the photo..
here is the DL&W switchback in Ithaca..
I never knew a road was built on the center section of the switchback!
the upper and lower approaches are now railtrails..
I need to go check that out in person..
(I drew in a faint green line marking the switchback)



and..last image..zooming in one more level brings us to the aerial photo..
all parts of the switchback are clearly visable..
(for some reason some color photos are infrared, like this Ithaca shot, and some are natural color..)



SUCH a fun website!
im going to use it a lot..
here it is..enjoy!
http://www1.nysgis.state.ny.us/MainMap.cfm

Great site Scott, thats really cool.
If you look at the closeup of the westend of the Goodman st. Yard in Rochester, you'll notice a solitary white car between 2 rows of empty hoppers. Just to the west of the car is a GP-38 being utilized by the Y101 and I believe just next to the upper left corner of the car is the conductor standing there preparing for the hitch. I didn't see my car in the parking lot. Must have been my day off, lol

WOW SCOTT,
What an incredable find!! I always use MSN's terraserver, but the images here are so much clearer! This is an invaluable tool for any railfan!

Amazing find, Scott! I just wasted 45 minutes looking at stuff!

Check out the pic of the LV bridge over Honeoye Creek just to the west of Rochester Junction. They had to splice two pictures together, but they didn't line things up properly. The west edge of the bridge appears to be quite a bit north of the east edge.

By the way, this site does not appear to work properly in Firefox.

One thing you need to watch with this site is they do update the aerial photos every few years. In a span of a few months, photos you were looking at can be updated with a new years worth and more detail is obscured as the landscape changes. In the 4 years I've been using the site, much has changed. With 9/11, many areas are now obscured due to security concerns. I worked with them for a while about 2 years ago to try to relax the rules to some extent but nothing happened.

The new interface is nice but the old one was much more user-friendly. If you do find an area obscured, it is worth emailing them and letting them know. Sometimes really weird areas are covered with no explaination and it makes you wonder what is actaully there that us being hidden.

Charles

Paige,

You're right. It also is spotty in Mozilla. IE seems to work fine (all this on a Mac). Again, emails to them do seem to help in that they keep track of people's comments.

Charles

Some parts of the country are avalible in high quality color photos thru terraserverusa.com, unfortunantly none of them are upstate.

nydepot, I noticed that both the fuel tanks, and west end tower of Buffalo's Frontier Yard were kinda messed up. That explains why. However, by distorting the area, are they not just bringing more attention to it?

Hey everybody, the map on this site is actually the very first I have ever seen which labels the tracks what they actually are now. Instead of "CONRAIL" or even "PENNCENTRAL" we get "CSX TRANSPORTATION" LOL, How many years has it been?

I believe these were taken last June of 2003- see the B40s stored (maybe??) at Liberty Street in Binghamton?

http://www1.nysgis.state.ny.us/tempimag ... CC29C8.gif

Joshua

SimTrains,

Yes, exactly what I thought. I had tried to explain to them how you can go by topo maps at Eastern Mountain or directly fromthe US Gov. Also Terraserver and their aerial photos.

There was one place, and I can't remember right now as it's been a year since I looked at it at this site, but I think it was near Geneseo and it was blocked out. There were no roads around it. It was a field or hill with no apparent access. Yet, it was of a security concern to them. Well, no I wanted to know what was there, just out of my own curiosity! I never found out but there most be something there, underground or whatever.

But as you say, 99% of the public probably had no idea something was there and now, because it is blocked out, people who visit the site know something "bad" is there.

Charles

I see a bunch of tank cars and boxcars and two NS units for local service (coal to Johnson City, Frito-Lay, etc.)

Charles

Even better is the stuff on a more local level. For instance, here in Monroe County (Rochester), the county uses the same imagery from the state's GIS website and takes it a step further. You can click on a map and see who owns your favorite abandoned ROW, what it pays in taxes every year, etc. Really neat.

http://www.mappingmonroe.org - select Property Portal

and for the City of Rochester proper:
http://geo.cityofrochester.net/

Also, Erie County has aerial photography from the 20's and 50's on their website as well... it's there, just gotta find it (don't know the URL offhand).

Great!!! now all I have to look up my buddies' properties and see what they're paying for taxes...

in a way, it's great. but in another way, it's NOT GREAT for your personal.... nessman and everyone... im sure you dont want people to look up and see what you're paying for taxes and how much is your property worth and every detail stuff about your property.. damn these public record!

Real property records is public information. If you can't get it online, all you need to do is go to your local tax assessor's office and get it there.

For the most part, residential properties do not reveal the homeowner's name.

If the records do not indicate a residential owner's name, how does one conduct a title search in connection with a sale or financing?