Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railroad (Operations into Terre Haute)

[19-685]

Although a majority of this railroad operates in Illinois, the Decatur & Eastern Illinois does operate into Dana, Indiana and Terre Haute, Indiana.

Have not been able to locate any CONFIRMED frequency information for this operation.

FCC data only lists "mobiles" in the non-AAR frequency band.

Can anyone advise frequencies used for interchange with CSXT at Terre Haute, or any other frequencies used for operations in Illinois (Paris, IL yard) or road/dispatcher operations?

Thank you

19-685

 

[AK9R]

Can anyone advise frequencies used for interchange with CSXT at Terre Haute

For talking to CSX at Terre Haute, or any other interchange point, they'd use the frequencies of the railroad they are interchanging with.

Did you check the Decatur & Easter Illinois freqs in the RR Database: Illinois Railroads (Illinois) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

 

[19-685]

Yes I checked the database and I know about "interchange" frequencies.

And the mobile listings are different for each location and in the normal business band (not in the normal AAR band).

The Eastern Illinois listing is for that line segment prior to DREI taking over so it may/may not apply to the Decatur-Paris-Terre Haute line.

Perhaps using the old CSXT frequencies prior to the line sale???

There's several photos and Youtube videos out there, so the line is "railfanned" quite often.

Just seems strange that they have no fixed based locations licensed anywhere on the system in the normal AAR channel plan range (160.215 Mhz to 161.565 Mhz) .... and no one has reported what's in actual use.

 

[AK9R]

Since DREI switches a lot grain elevators, they may have gotten licenses for VHF business band frequencies that the elevators use.

It's possible that they do all of their train dispatching by cell phone (with the train at a stop to comply with FRA rules). If they never have more than one train operating on the line at a time or if multiple operations are widely separated, they really don't need much in the way of dispatching.

There's a YouTuber with the channel "Kyle B Videography" who does a lot of DREI videos around Terre Haute. There's also a Facebook group for Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railfans where a "Kyle Barnhart" is an admin. I believe they are the same person.

Someone asked about radio channels in the FB group in May 2022. The response was "47/56 on Charleston Sub, 08 Yard/84 Road Decatur Sub, 89/91 Danville Sub".