St Louis Metro/County Railroads
- Thread starter ltginrage
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Look on this page: St. Louis County - Businesses - Transportation Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference Scroll near the bottom of the page for the area railroad listings.
The list is not complete and may contain errors but it's a start.
If you know more accurate info than what the page shows, please submit!
The list is not complete and may contain errors but it's a start.
If you know more accurate info than what the page shows, please submit!
FYI. I believe the list needs to be moved to the statewide page, not locally. That will take some work though.
I think we tried to figure this one out before Terry!
A lot of rail activity around St Louis is not really statewide for Missouri or Illinois as it is used in the rail yards throughout the St Louis Metro area bit in both states.
I started putting together a better list quite some time ago but stopped as I did not have any easy way of verifying the true user. I could see what FCC info showed and usually make an educated guess but determining what rail yard some of the comms were from was near impossibly without trips to the areas. Some of those areas on the east side are probably not the best areas to be goofing around in if you know what I mean!
The channels marked as road channels could probably go into a statewide heading even though a lot of the subs don't actually occupy entire states.
For the other stuff like rail yards, maybe they could be lumped into a statewide list with a note that they may be region specific. I don't know but that's just an idea.
I've never looked at the counties in and around Kansas City on the Missouri side or the Kansas side but I'd bet they have the same problem. Maybe something in the KC area can be used as an example.
Thanks for whatever you figure out!
Yeah, it's not something I really personally want to mess with. I know very little about rail scanning and it would only confuse me and mess things up more. I don't personally agree with a statewide listings, especially when some lines are local or go between 1 or more states.
One thing this database needs, is the ability to make a "system" like a trunk system, for conventional frequencies.... where we can assign specific counties to a list of frequencies.
One thing this database needs, is the ability to make a "system" like a trunk system, for conventional frequencies.... where we can assign specific counties to a list of frequencies.
I thought CSQ was a FRA requirement on any main lines? Especially any lines were another operator may be granted trackage rights.
I know certain yard ops can and do use PL and repeaters etc. but I've never seen PL used on main lines before. I guess they could transmit tones all they want but I'm pretty sure the receivers must be set for CSQ so they don't block any emergency calls from say a foreign operator.
Maybe its the switching ops or something, but its on a main line. I live 20 mins away from a industrial area. I only hear traffic on the Aurora BNSF Sub in Northern IL (161.160) PL100.0. The defect detector doesnt transmit with a PL that I've noticed.
I could see them using PL for switching ops and the like. It would keep down chatter that may otherwise distract them. Maybe for crews that would not benefit from hearing any type of emergency traffic, PL use is permissible.
I need to turn on tone scan on some radios the next time I monitor rail traffic and see if I catch any tones. It's been a while since I've checked for that!
I need to turn on tone scan on some radios the next time I monitor rail traffic and see if I catch any tones. It's been a while since I've checked for that!
The best thing to do is just search the RR band. The yards will be on one frequency, the dispatch on another and train ops sometimes on another. There are same 400mhz and 900mhz frequencies in some areas. Not sure about Stl.
It could be called the Road channel if they use separate Dispatch and Road channels. If they don't have a dedicated 'Road' channel then yes, Dispatch would be used.
Detectors are usually low power where dispatch would probably not hear them depending on how they are setup.
On Norfolk Southerns Road Channel you can hear at least 2 different detectors with a J-pole. You can find a map of the mile markers online
I'm way over here on the west coast (KC area), but most metro areas have some railfan sites that might help you understand what you're hearing.
Here are a few "railfanning St. Louis" sites I Googled up:
St. Louis Railfanning - Hotspots (unknown date)
http://www.gregariousrailfan.com/files/St_Louis.pdf (2013, has map)
St. Louis Railfan Guide (1996!)
Most of the time these will just have the frequencies, and not the details on PL or other tones. Also, some of them are kind of old, but I have found that railroads usually don't change things around too often.
A lot of people here probably already know this, but if you hear an engineer identify their train as the "NS 1234", that doesn't necessarily mean it's a Norfolk Southern train - it just means it happens to have an NS engine on the front. If you can catch the dispatcher, they will almost always identify with the accurate name of the railroad.
The feds have a map with all the big railroads, but it's not working for me at the moment. No frequencies, but it does have the mileposts. https://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/
For UP only, a (now retired) engineer posted his own versions of track charts for most of UP's system. Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20160330215920/http://fogchart.com/FOGCHARTED.htm . The St. Louis area ones don't seem to have radio information, but they do have the mileposts, station names, etc, that might be interesting. (The radio information on those charts is usually the AAR channel number, and not the frequency, but you can look it up.)
BNSF apparently doesn't mind about having their employee timetables online, as long as they are at least 10 years old. These will have the radio frequencies as AAR channels, station names, mileposts, and other goodies. For the St. Louis area, you want the Springfield division: BNSF Timetables – Phase 4 – FOBNR.ORG
Here are a few "railfanning St. Louis" sites I Googled up:
St. Louis Railfanning - Hotspots (unknown date)
http://www.gregariousrailfan.com/files/St_Louis.pdf (2013, has map)
St. Louis Railfan Guide (1996!)
Most of the time these will just have the frequencies, and not the details on PL or other tones. Also, some of them are kind of old, but I have found that railroads usually don't change things around too often.
A lot of people here probably already know this, but if you hear an engineer identify their train as the "NS 1234", that doesn't necessarily mean it's a Norfolk Southern train - it just means it happens to have an NS engine on the front. If you can catch the dispatcher, they will almost always identify with the accurate name of the railroad.
The feds have a map with all the big railroads, but it's not working for me at the moment. No frequencies, but it does have the mileposts. https://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/
For UP only, a (now retired) engineer posted his own versions of track charts for most of UP's system. Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20160330215920/http://fogchart.com/FOGCHARTED.htm . The St. Louis area ones don't seem to have radio information, but they do have the mileposts, station names, etc, that might be interesting. (The radio information on those charts is usually the AAR channel number, and not the frequency, but you can look it up.)
BNSF apparently doesn't mind about having their employee timetables online, as long as they are at least 10 years old. These will have the radio frequencies as AAR channels, station names, mileposts, and other goodies. For the St. Louis area, you want the Springfield division: BNSF Timetables – Phase 4 – FOBNR.ORG
Thanks I'm programming St. Louis Metro and County along with Madison County in Illinois into the scanner just in case I ever make my way down there to see family.
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