You Tube Top Ten: Virtual Railfan (#10)

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About a year and a half ago I ditched cable. So what has replaced cable, you may ask? You Tube, of course! Between You Tube and my MLB app subscription (where I can watch baseball games in the dead of winter) I don't have any boredom, that's for sure. I thought it'd be cool to look at my ten favorite You Tube channels. What may shock you is that only one of these is a music channel. Here we go! #10: Virtual Railfan Oh, here's something that'll keep you glued to the screen 24/7: live feeds of railroad tracks. No, it's not nearly as boring as it sounds. Maybe it's that opening line that Johnny Cash drilled into my head when I was a baby: "I hear the train a-comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend." Or maybe it's because my aunt and uncle had a house right along the railroad tracks. Or maybe it's because my uncle lost his right arm when he was 19 by crawling under a moving train. (Absolutely true story. It happened on April 6, 1956, and it made the local paper.) Whatever it is, I've always had a thing for trains. What better way to satisfy this wanderlust than a 24/7 live video feed of train tracks? And, as I said, it's nowhere nearly as "boring" or "dull" as it may sound. In addition to the trains going by, you get to see gorgeous sunsets (I watched one in California not too long ago), weather changes (I tuned in for a cool lightning show in Arizona one evening), local scenery (the link below in LaGrange, Kentucky currently shows the Christmas decorations), and natural beauty. The cameras are located at various places throughout the U.S., showing some train depots (there's one in Missouri at a train station), some towns (such as the town square in LaGrange, where the train track runs down Main Street -- literally), and some out-in-the-country area (one in California didn't have too many lights from nearby towns visible). I'm sure there are some people who watch it for the same reason they watch NASCAR: the wrecks (yes, the cameras catch hits and near-misses all the time). For me, however, it's the beauty of the scenery from various parts of the country, along with the trains chugging by. Virtual Railfan Live 24/7 Here's the camera showing the town square in LaGrange, Kentucky, home of D.W. Griffith and my residence when I first got out of the Navy: