Austin & Western Railroad on LCRA

[KenFL9]

The Austin & Western is the new WATCO family of shortlines operator for freight service over the ex-Southern Pacific lines from west out around Burnett through Austin and east towards Elgin. The old operator along with the Austin Steam Train Association had been using 161.520 simplex, but a friend who works there tells me the locomotives have all now been equipped with radios on the LCRA trunked system, and they are being dispatched by Austin Capitol Metro. I'm up in Fort Worth, so if anyone determines what talk groups they are using for the freight operations and any other info, it would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[bownasterm]

Wow i have never heard of a railroad using trunked before, i saw a thread about the AWRR on rrforums i think they have a nice paint job on those sd60's

 

[kd5dga]

I would imagine that buying radio services off of LCRA would be cheaper that to impliment their own.

 

[rbarker]

Rail using LCRA Talkgroups

666 05-032 Capital Metro Light Rail Travis County - Austin - Transit
670 05-036 Capitol Metro Light Rail (Signal repair) Travis County - Austin - Transit

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=48&d=&opt=all_tg

These are the 2 talkgoups I have been hearing rail traffic on. I've heard them go as far as Leander.

 

[KenFL9]

Railroad Talkgroup Names

Just in, here is what was given to the freight railroad employees regarding the new LCRA radios they have been given:

Radio Display:

CM_R_YARD = Capital Metro Yard
CM_R_CML = Capital Metro Commuter
CM_R_SUP = Capital Metro Supervisor
CM_R_MWC = Maintenance of Way
CM_R_FML = Capital Metro Road Channel
CM_R_RAIL = Capital Metro Emergency
LCRATOCC = LCRA Radio Support
CM_R_UPI = Union Pacific Railroad Dispatcher (patch to 160.740)

Most of these are probably better defined tags for existing talkgroups in the database, and all assistance in matching them up and updating the database will be appreciated!