Railcam UK – Railcam UK

Railcam & Watchet Visitor Centre partnership to promote harbour town

Railcam are delighted to be partnering Watchet Visitor Centre, in a project that aims to increase our coverage of the delightful West Somerset Railway, whilst also helping to promote the Somerset harbour town to a wider audience.

The project is kindly funded by Watchet Town Council and Somerset Council to support the promotion of the town, with two cameras situated at the Watchet Visitor Centre/Watchet Boat Museum building. The cameras were installed by the Railcam team, who will manage and maintain them moving forward.

Watchet Camera 1

The camera gives us an excellent view of the approaches to Watchet Station which was originally the terminus of Brunel’s broad gauge that opened to Taunton in 1862. You’ll see trains arriving and departing to Minehead with the camera directly above Minehead bound departing locomotives, providing a unique view over the drivers shoulder as crews prepare for the guards whistle.

Watchet Camera 2

The camera gives us an excellent view along the length of Watchet Station. You’ll see trains arriving and departing to Bishops Lydeard with the camera also providing far reaching views out across the Bristol Channel with the island of Steep Holm clearly visible. Watchet Marina, East Quay and the Goivers Lane foot crossing provide the backdrop of this ancient port of a 1000 years.

The cameras will be available to watch for free, 24/7 via the Railcam website, Youtube channel & the Watchet Visitor Centre website.

Important Links

Watchet Visitor Centre – Website | Facebook | X/Twitter

Watchet Town Council – Website | Facebook

Somerset Council – Website | Facebook | X/Twitter

West Somerset Railway – Website | Facebook | X/Twitter

Railcam ‘Making Tracks’ with groundbreaking broadcast

We are delighted to be partnering with Pete Waterman and his Railnuts to bring exclusive coverage of ‘Making Tracks 3’, live for SIX weeks from Chester Cathedral; a groundbreaking project that has never been seen before on this scale within the model railway community.

The subject may be the same, but the scale vastly smaller! It’s Railcam, but not as we know it…..

Making Tracks 3 is, as you would expect, the third layout to be produced in the series by Pete Waterman and the Railnuts, with all three based on locations on the West Coast Mainline. This years offering depicting the present day Milton Keynes station.

After being approached in early June, Andrew has worked tirelessly to source cameras suitable for streaming trains 76 times smaller than we are used to. With such a diminutive scale to cover, the options for off the shelf accessories was very limited, so the answer was to design and produce our own bespoke mounts and brackets that would be both functional and not overly intrusive for guests visiting this marvel of model railway construction.

As part of this very special broadcast, we have a dedicated page which features 5 cameras covering the main layout and an overview of the fiddle yard. Viewing options include a ‘Quad-cam’ view with the 4 main cameras on one page, ‘Cycle-cam’ which rotates between the 4 main views individually, with the final ‘Aerial-cam’ covering the fiddle yard.

Making Tracks 3 is on display at Chester Cathedral from Wednesday 26th July to Saturday the 2nd September, open to the public and live streaming Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.

Click here to got to Making Tracks 3 LIVE

Making Tracks 3 is bought to you with support from Chester Cathedral, Railcam UK, Chester Model Centre, Model Signs, PJM Bespoke Models, Accurascale, Peco, Hornby, Hornby Magazine, MegaPoints Controllers, Hanson Plywood Limited, Tom Connell & UK Departure Boards.

125 Preservation Debut Running Day

Sunday 9th July sees the first public running of 125 Preservation’s HST at Nene Valley Railway.

The 125 arrived at Nene Valley in January and a small team has worked tirelessly to get it ready for visitors.

The class 43 powercars last operated with Colas Rail, but before that were part of the Midland Mainline fleet for many years.

43045 “The Grammar School Doncaster AD1350” and 43060 “County of Leicestershire” will both be operating on the day.

Two of the coaches operating in the train are from the Prototype HST dating from 1972 (42000, 41002), so although they look modern they are actually 51 years old!

Currently fitted with GNER/VTEC/LNER standard class seating, the team have rearranged the seats inside the vehicles into groups of 4.

The GWR buffet car, dating from 1976 was the first built production MK3 buffet car (40001) and has full leather seating. They will be serving hot and cold snacks and drinks, as well as selling a selection of souvenirs – mugs, keyrings, badges etc.

For more information and to keep up to date with everything 125 Preservation, you can visit the website or Facebook page.

Railcam Round-up

Another week of upgrades and installs this past week from our dedicated team, but what have we been up to…..?

Andrew Jebb and Andrew Cooper kicked off the week with a visit to Doncaster, and our hosts Foodtest Labs Ltd, where we have upgraded the camera to one of our latest PTZ models from Dahua.

On Wednesday our team moved onto a new location, more on that to come on Monday (24th April), but in the meantime here is a little preview….

On to Thursday and the two Andy’s were over in Altrincham for another upgrade project, and we have taken the opportunity to install a ‘Cleethorpes’ style set up, with a dual camera unit providing us with views in both directions. The south view camera is now LIVE, alongside the existing north view.

Finally on to Friday and Andrew Jebb was joined by Phil O’Ryan for a visit to Network Rail’s York ROC. The job was to install another camera upgrade to ROC camera 1, and to repair the damage those pesky Magpies had done to the microphone mufflers. The fluffy nature of the microphone covers is obviously a very eye-catching nest liner for our feathered friends…. Again we have upgraded to one go the latest Dahua PTZ cameras.

As always, we would like to thank our dedicated install team this week, Andrew Jebb, Andrew Cooper and Phil O’Ryan for giving up their time, and to our hosts across all our sites for their continued support, without you there simply wouldn’t be Railcam.

The continued program of upgrades and installs is only made possible by our subscribers, and you can be part of that for as little as £4 for a month, or a bargain £30 for an entire year. It’s not all about the cameras though, we have one of the most detailed live signalling diagram packages available, as well as schedules and user sourced allocation information, find out what you get with your subscription here.