Obama's trip to the Inauguration

[ka3jjz]

I heard on the news yesterday that President elect Obama and his family will be riding a train (didn't say which one...) into Wilmington to pick up Vice President elect Biden and his family, stop off in Baltimore then move onto DC (presumably stopping at Union Station).

Might be some interesting listening on the RR freqs, if someone can find the train they are using and it's not all encrypted....73 Mike

 

[icom1020]

I get the impression it's a charter, considering the layovers and obvious security. Politics aside, Biden is a big Amtrak supporter, hopefully we will see more support for passenger rail. It might have a special #designation. I know some of the charters have I heard had 2 digit numbers in the 90's.

 

[AK9R]

Shade of Lincoln's trip to his first inaugaration. If I remember the history correctly, he rode a train from Springfield, Illinois, to Baltimore. The Pinkerton agents who were protecting him (this was before the Secret Service protected the President) got nervous about the death threats Lincoln was receiving, so he was taken off the train at Baltimore and moved by carriage to Washington.

 

[kb2vxa]

Railroad frequencies are not encrypted and you'll hear nothing unusual on them. Charter schedules aren't published so all you'll see if you're in the right place at the right time is an unscheduled movement. They may just tag one or more business cars on a regularly scheduled train, execs and VIPs travel like that all the time.

 

[ka3jjz]

While I agree RR freqs aren't normally encrypted Warren, this is a highly unusual trip with highly unusual passengers. It's going to be tough to find the freq(s) being used - I would bet these would be simplex only, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that P25 was being used, encrypted or not. I understand that there is some movement toward that, according to the article in the wiki. It could be that they will use the UHF freqs, or maybe be using the NXDN protocol - good as encryption, as far as us scannists go.

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Railroad

73 Mike

 

[wwhitby]

If the railroad(s) involved were going to use some mode other then plain vanilla analog, you should see it prior to the run of that special. For the railroad(s) involved, this is going to be a pretty big undertaking - railroad personnel and equipment standing by, officials monitoring the train's progress, et al. If you suddenly turned on a new mode, such as P-25, NXDN, encryption or whatever, without verifying that it will work ok in advance, the railroads would have a higher potential of having problems and causing confusion.

IIRC, switches are spiked and locked along the route of the presidential train. In some cases, additional engines were standing by along the route to protect the presidential train. Also, duplicate, close to identical consists have been used so that no one who wasn't "in the know" knew for sure which consist carried the president. If the president wasn't on the first train, the first train served as the pilot train.

This is going to be a big deal for the railroad(s) involved, and i'm very curious to what they do to pull this off.

Warren

 

[burner50]

For what its worth, the feds say that all communications regarding the movement of a train will be made in the rail band and not encrypted.

Thats not saying that the Obama crew will obey that particular law. But I believe that the train movements will be made with regular AAR channels and the security stuff on other frequencies.

 

[icom1020]

No more bigger a deal than the "white train" movements during the 80's with trains at 35mph hauling missile components for various sub bases. Let's not forget, Amtrak Police has two helicopters that regularly patrol the NE Corridor.

 

[code3cowboy]

Amtrak One would be appropriate.

 

[AK9R]

But if the move is from Obama's home base in Chicago to Washington DC, it'll be an eastbound which means it should be Amtrak 2.

 

[jaymatt1978]

Well the Secret Service is going to be on the train and they're encryted. Although I imagine the train traffic would o-perate like anyother. It should be interesting to say the least.

 

[poltergeisty]

Wow! This has to be a very unique time for The Secret Service to provide security for a train. Very interesting. I mean, when was the last time Secret Service did this?

What a good idea on his part too. He'll see some of the landscape of what he will soon be President of.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/23/obamas-train-trip-may-open-his-eyes/

 

[poltergeisty]

Double post

 

[code3cowboy]

Wow! This has to be a very unique time for The Secret Service to provide security for a train. Very interesting. I mean, when was the last time Secret Service did this?

What a good idea on his part too. He'll see some of the landscape of what he will soon be President of.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/23/obamas-train-trip-may-open-his-eyes/

GOP Victory train, 2004.

 

[code3cowboy]

But if the move is from Obama's home base in Chicago to Washington DC, it'll be an eastbound which means it should be Amtrak 2.

. . . . That was a play on Air Force One.