Railroad Police

[WIscannerguy24]

Do the major railroad companies police departments use the railroad frequencies or do they use other frequencies?

 

[HM1529]

Do the major railroad companies police departments use the railroad frequencies or do they use other frequencies?

Usually, they use frequencies in the VHF 160-161 range.

In my area, there is very little activity from the RR police on the radio.

Norfolk Southern has a centralized police dispatching facility located in Roanoke, VA. I will very rarely hear an officer in the local area either calling or being called by "NS-1000" on one of the local base stations. Where I am, in former Conrail territory, 160.560 is the frequency used by NS Police Dispatch.

When I was living along the CSX Philly Sub years ago, I used to hear the local CSX police officers working on 160.875. The officers had an office at the local CSX yard in Philadelphia and could be heard checking in every now and then while doing patrols of the yards and port areas .

Nowadays, cell phones have greatly reduced the amount of traffic I hear locally.

Amtrak Police and the local transit police are much busier than the freight railroads and have many more officers assigned locally. RR Police for the freight railroads are often spread few and far between.


EDIT: You're much more likely to hear freight railroad police activity if you live near major terminal/yard areas. Otherwise, don't expect to hear much.

The only official site I know of is the NS's.
http://nspolice.com/

Here's a little info on a couple others....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Police_Department

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_Police_Department

 

[bpckty1]

They also have talkgroups on local Trunked Radio Systems, Starnet (Harris County, TX), for example.

 

[RRgumshoe]

We use both in my department.

I use our road channels to talk to the trains and supervisors on a daily basis. Especially if I'm working xing enforcement they let me know when they are pulling from the yard so i can set up at a gate down the line.

I also use our dispatch channel sometimes but it's rare. Our dispatch is far far away and pointless from an officer safety standpoint to call a dispatcher that can't even help me.

We also use nextel. For most of my general police business I utilize county dispatch. Average Railroad police officer can carry sometimes up to 3 radios and a scanner LOL. At least that's how I have my car rigged.

 

[kadetklapp]

Right. Most RR PD units will work off whatever system is in their area, like last I knew CSX police in the Avon yard would work off of Avon PD or Hendricks dispatch.