Trainspotter TV http://www.metafilter.com/168291/Trainspotter-TV
Maybe you're thinking, "the best thing I could possibly do right now while I'm sitting at work is watch live video feeds of railroad crossings and hope that the occasional train passes by." If so, then you might be surprised to know that there's never been a better time in recorded history than right now! Start by checking what's currently live on the YouTube accounts of
Virtual Railfan,
Railstream and
Big Trains TV. Most videos in this post include ambient sound even if traffic noise is quiet the trains will be loud. For more a whole lot more, see below.
YouTube live streams provide four hours of timeline scrollback, so the impatient can rewind to the last train crossing to get a quick fix.
The URLs of live streams frequently change even when the locations don't. So it's usually better to start at the streamers' YouTube channels rather than link directly to streams. This is also a way to find new streams as railfans get permission (and/or funding) to set up more cameras.
Virtual Railfan: This has the best quality of the rail fan video streams and the locations are good, providing multiple camera angles, high-quality high-framerate video, and a very tightly moderated live chat. Current locations are Ashland, VA, where two tracks divide Center Street, La Grange, KY where a main rail line is literally
on Main Street sharing pavement with local traffic, La Plata, MO at an Amtrak station, and the Horseshoe Curve near Altoona, PA, with a remote-controlled camera that chat moderators can move on request.
Railstream: Currently has two publicly accessible live streams, one each for cameras positioned back-to-back on a track in Chesterton, Indiana. Paid membership at their site provides access to up to a dozen more cameras at other locations.
Big Trains TV: Has three cameras positioned at New Bridge Road in Bergenfield, NJ. There is a moderated live chat. The frame rate on these cameras is kind of low, which can make watching hard on the eyes after a while.
Galesburg Railroad Museum in Galesburg, IL: A siding with camera views up and down several tracks.
North Camera 1.
South Camera 2.
RailCam Mierlo-Hout has one stream at a grade in the Mierlo-Hout district of Helmond, southeast in The Netherlands. The live chat stream is mostly in English.
RoanokeRailcam [silent] has one camera aimed at the switching yards in Roanoke, VA.
The Leek and Rudyard Railway [silent] is a steam locomotive line in Staffordshire, England with a rail camera at one station. (Link is to the video because the channel, for some reason, does not show it.)
HAB [silent] has a camera at Kanazawa Station in Ishikawa, Japan, where you can see high-speed Shinkansen arriving and departing.
If that's not enough to zone out to, there are also dozens if not hundreds of live railway streams outside of YouTube. Some streams have music on the soundtrack. The indexes below rarely clean out dead or hijacked links, and many sites require Flash. So be aware and browse safe.
RailServe.com indexes over 300 live railcams from many countries, some of which require viewer registration.
WebCamPlaza lists a few dozen streams, with notes on with media type.
MyLiveStream has even more links to streams mostly outside the U.S.