Cache instructions:
The Centerville Train Depot sports two webcams, one inside a very nicely renovated diner (that also has free wifi) and one outside at the platform so web denizens can watch the ACE/Amtrak trains come and go.
The posted coordinates will take you to a good place to stand for the platform-viewing webcam, accessible 24/7 (unlike the diner cam). It is not on the tracks, no matter what your GPSr says, so don't go there. You can see the camera from these coordinates if you look around, and it records an image approximately every 2 seconds. You have choices now on how to proceed:
For the DIY, anti-social, or ultra-independent geocachers:
(1) You can get onto the site when you get home (within 24 hours, 12 to be safe), and with a little hunting around the webcam site (knowing the time you were there is VERY useful), you can get and post your photo all by yourself.
(2) You can bring a wireless device (e.g. laptop, PDA, smartphone, etc.) and use the FREE wifi at the depot (even when its closed) to download and post your webcam photo with your log.
For the unprepared, travelling from out-of-town, or uber-social geocachers:
(3) You can call someone via cell phone or the nearby pay phones (or arrange for them to stare at the site until they see you) to save your photo for you, in the traditional webcam manner. Note: The image automatically refreshes with newer browsers (tested with Netscape 7.2 on Mac and Firefox 1.0.7 on Win), but perhaps not older ones (e.g. Safari 1.0.3 on Mac)
Cache requirement: Please make sure your GPSr is easily seen in the photo that you post, and if you do this at night, find the platform light and stand near it!
Link to the cam: http://www.oiccam.com/webcams/index.html?/depotdiner/photo.html. Please choose the "BIG" option when browsing the images to save!
(Did I mention that the WiFi here was free?)
A little history for the historically-minded:
On Saturday morning, May 29, 1909, the first steam-powered passenger train into Centerville received a hearty welcome. A cannon was fired, the locomotive was decorated with flags, and the train crew was presented with Centerville's choicest fruits and flowers. A year later, the Southern Pacific Railroad completed a new wood depot in September of 1910. The depot was built as a variation of what Southern Pacific called its "One Story Combination Depot No. 23." The Centerville depot was constructed at the height of popularity of rail travel, at a time when Southern Pacific trains provided a nearly universal web of transportation throughout California.
For thirty years, the depot hosted passenger trains operating between Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Stockton, and even Redwood City for a few years. From 1910 through the early 1920's, the station served two or three daily milk trains, carrying the area's milk and cream to dairies in San Jose and Oakland. Local residents used the depot to commute to work, out-of-town relatives stepped off the train to visit, and immigrants arrived from the East Coast to begin new lives. Southern Pacific officially retired the depot on September 30, 1961, fifty-one years after it was opened. On June 4, 1993, Fremont welcomed the return of passenger trains to the Centerville station after an absence of 53 years.
In December of 1993, the City of Fremont acquired ownership of the depot itself and began to plan its restoration. Of more than sixty "No. 23"-style depots constructed by Southern Pacific between 1896 and 1916, less than a dozen exist today and the Centerville depot is the only one used in rail passenger service.