I am taking Amtrak from Omaha to Salt Lake City next week. Any suggestions for interesting radio traffic? Train frequencies? anything we will be railing past that is good to look at that I might not expect? Good hotbox detectors? Thanks for any help anyone can provide. Mark
"HaRRy" Sutton has an excellent Amtrak travel website, and specifically for radio stuff see his "scanner tips" page at
http://on-track-on-line.com/scanner-radio.shtml and radio frequencies for each route at
http://on-track-on-line.com/amtrak-freqs.shtml - the California Zephyr link there. I don't recall how much rail-related radio traffic there is along there, nor how many or what type of detectors; it's been a number of years since I rode that stretch.
Amtrak has a halfway decent but sparse route guide at
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/routeguidecazephyr.pdf
Unfortunately almost your entire trip in both directions will be at night (assuming the trains are on time... sometimes a
very iffy assumption), so there won't be a whole lot to see. Hopefully they'll cut the lights in the sightseer lounge car and you'll at least get to see the city and rural lights that pass you by. Enjoy the trip, and pick up a danish and a coffee from the lounge attendant as soon as he opens around 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. That's one of my rituals on EVERY overnight train ride.
