RailRoad Police - Houston, Tx

[cuelc001]

Hi everyone in Houston and surrounding areas,

I bought a uniden BCD436HP a couple of weeks back and I love it. While looking for channels to listen to I came across the UP Railroad Police frequency.

I have only had luck with picking up the UP Railroad police a couple of years back on my old analog scanner and then they went digital. I have not heard the UP Railroad police (or any other railroad police) since I had my new Uniden.

Has anyone had luck picking up the UP Railroad police recently? Thanks

 

[motorola_otaku]

Railroad police typically do not have dispatchers (Amtrak PD on the east coast is a notable exception) and typically do not operate on the radio the same way a "normal" police department does. The Houston region is no exception.

All three railroad police agencies operating in Houston (UP, BNSF, and PTRA) have talkgroups on both of the TxWARN systems but only use them for back channel chat - not for dispatch or patrol. UP police do have access to DPS VHF channels and will contact DPS Houston on Base B for 28/29 checks. RR police units may also come up on road channels to contact a train directly, or monitor the yard channel of the yard they're patrolling. If a unit is needed someplace (like for a reported trespasser) they are contacted by cellphone by the yardmaster or road dispatcher.

 

[hiegtx]

Be sure, when trying to hear RR Police on rail frequencies (at least frequencies from the main database) that you have the Railroad service type enabled.

What you may want to do is add certain rail frequencies that you've found, in the past, to be associated with RR Police to a Favorites list, and use a "Law Tac" service type. That's the service type they have on the two TxWARN systems.

 

[cuelc001]

Thank you guys!

 

[procopper7005]

Kansas City Southern almost always are only heard on the RR road freq's. I have heard their units in Wharton County running names and tags on the DPS VHF so they have access to that.

 

[motorola_otaku]

Kansas City Southern almost always are only heard on the RR road freq's. I have heard their units in Wharton County running names and tags on the DPS VHF so they have access to that.

Do you remember what identifiers they were using?

I have it on pretty good authority that KCS has no police presence at the Kendleton terminal; when an incident occurs on railroad property it is first handled by local police then a KCS PD unit has to come all the way down from Shreveport to complete the investigation.