Into the ozone

Yesterday morning (Wednesday, May 19, 2010) my FireFox Internet-browser kept crashing mightily in flames.
I keep six-or-seven Internet sites (“tabs”) permanently open; Facebook, Photobucket, my MyCast® weather-radar, both blog sites — MPNnow and BlogSpot — plus two railfan web-cams.
By keeping these tabs permanently open, I never have to log in.
I've been a railfan all my life, since age-2 — I'm currently 66.
One rail-cam is the web-cam at Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA.
Horseshoe Curve is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. It was a trick by the Pennsylvania Railroad, in 1854, well before modern grading technology, to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades.
The railroad circles back in a valley to keep the climb manageable.
It's part of the main route east for Midwestern freight, so trains are pretty frequent.
Horseshoe Curve has been made into a tourist attraction.
It has a viewing area right in the apex of the Curve.
Trains are up-close-and-personal.
I've been there hundreds of times, since it's only about five hours away.
It's also in a verdant mountain valley, so the setting is gorgeous.
The Horseshoe Curve web-cam monitors the railroad, which is no longer Pennsy (the Pennsylvania Railroad).
Pennsy merged with arch-rival New York Central as Penn-Central in 1968, and soon even that failed.
Norfolk Southern, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway, currently operates Horseshoe Curve.
It followed Conrail after Conrail was broken up and sold. Conrail succeeded Penn-Central.
Norfolk Southern got most of the ex-Pennsy lines, and rival CSX Transportation (railroad) got the ex-New York Central lines.
The Curve web-cam is old and slow. It refreshes about every second; slow enough for a train to advance 10-15 feet between refreshes.
Still, it's interesting.
Turn it on, and often a train is passing.
Sometimes I can even identify the trains; e.g. the infamous “trash-train,” westbound — up The Hill — of rag-tag purple containers filled with trash.
Another is 36A, eastbound — down The Hill. It often has large colorful tractors in it.
My second railfan web-cam is the Roanoke Rail-Cam, of the old Norfolk & Western (now Norfolk Southern) mainline through Roanoke, VA.
It's really great; like watching a movie, or actual TV.
It refreshes fast enough to not be noticeable.
If a car comes down the street, it's a car coming down the street, not single frames of where it was seconds apart.
When a train passes, it's not like the Curve web-cam. It's one continuous motion.
But when I fired up FireFox, as I do when firing up my computer, FireFox crashed, and threw a crash-message at me.
I clicked “retry.” Boom! It immediately did it again.
FireFox always gives you a dialog-box when it crashes, so you can comment on the crash.
“Second try,” I entered.
Boom! Did it again.
“Third try.”
Boom! Did it again.
“I give up!”
I clicked “start new session.”
That vaporizes all my tabs, and redirects to only my home-page, the Curve web-cam.
Got it; stability I guess.
I set about a second tab of the Roanoke Rail-Cam.
Boom! Into the ozone.
Looks like it's the Roanoke Rail-Cam.
It's been so popular it couldn't handle the traffic.
They had to take it down — too many hits.
They're reconfiguring with technology to handle the 89 bazilyun hits.
Back to Square One.
New session of FireFox, only my home-page.
I set about making tabs of all my other sites, Facebook, MyCast, Photobucket, etc.
But not the Roanoke Rail-Cam.
Stability I guess.
Back in business, but no Roanoke Rail-Cam.
No Roanoke Rail-Cam link herein. I don't want it blowing up my FireFox again.

• MPNnow is the web-site of the Daily Messenger Newspaper in nearby Canandaigua, where I once worked. I was maintaining that web-site before I retired — which was over four years ago. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.) —These blogs also go on a blog-site at MPNnow.