Unique question for a railfan

[kc9gld]

My work parking lot lies next to a set of rails that only short southbound trains use every day. There is a railyard in Frankfort Indiana, on the east end of that yard, there is a switch to allow short trains, only about 15 or 20 cars to be pushed north to the dead end, then a locomotive to be hooked up, the switch thrown again to allow this train to go southbound. It then leaves Frankfort enroute past my work parking lot in Lebanon Indiana, turns towards Indianapolis, past the Indy 500 track, then I'm guessing towards Indianapolis or the other way towards St. Louis Mo.. My question is, what frequency would they be using in that loco? I'm not sure what type of daily train it would be, but over the last year, there has never been more than 15 cars daily. I dont even know if they are empty or not. Generally there are black soy bean cars, flat cars, but never any box cars. For locomotives, I've never seen Chessie, BNSF, or the one with the black stallion. I'll bet one of you experienced railfans might be able to help me out. Thanks Harley kc9gld

 

[INDY72]

Thats an CSX line on the map. https://www.in.gov/indot/files/2017 Indiana Rail System Map.pdf

So use https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=1936 the CSX Statewide Road listing.
160.56000 BM CSQ AAR 030 IC Dispatcher: Crawfordsville/Frankfort/Shelbyville/Indy Terminal
161.07000 BM CSQ AAR 064 IB Dispatcher: St Louis Line

Loco would be CSX blue one, any from an SD-40 to an SD-70/80, or AC4400. CSX Motive Power

Same Dispatcher runs the IB and IC desk as those were combined.
And welcome to the railfanning world.

 

[kc9gld]

Thank you so much, I have always been a rail fan but never looked deeply into it. I always wondered what it would have been like to be employed by Penn Central back in the 70's. A school mate retired from the Beech Grove shops years ago, and in the late 70's I went to see him at the Avon yards. I was amazed at the size of the motor, at that time I was a mechanic at a local Chevrolet dealer. Thanks again, I'll put those in the scanner in mu pickup. Harley kc9gld

 

[INDY72]

No problem. Been into rail since I got into scanning. Used to have an uncle that was an engineer as well as signal maintainer for Illinois Central Gulf that got bought by Canadian National right as he retired.

 

[AK9R]

Harley, the tracks through Lebanon are the CSX Frankfort Branch. It runs from Clermont to Frankfort. They connect with the CSX Crawfordsville Branch at Clermont. The Crawfordsville Branch runs from downtown Indianapolis out to near Indianapolis International Airport where the tracks turn north to Clermont and then west to Crawfordsville. Neither the Frankfort Branch nor the Crawfordsville Branch go past the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The line that runs up the east side of the Speedway property now stops near 86th Street.

The train you see just about every weekday is J776. They go on duty around 8:00 am at the CSX Hawthorne Yard on the southeast side of Indianapolis near Emerson and Prospect. Once J776 gets its track warrant from the IB Dispatcher on 160.560 MHz, they make their way through downtown Indianapolis, out the Crawfordsville Branch, then up the Frankfort Branch to Frankfort. Along the way, they switch customers in Lebanon (mostly DA Lube in the industrial park on the southwest side of town). In Frankfort, they get permission from Norfolk Southern to enter the NS yard where they switch an ADM soybean processing plant on the west side of Frankfort. ADM insists on getting service from more than one railroad which is the primary reason why this train still exists. The train also interchanges a few cars with NS at Frankfort.

When they are done switching at Frankfort, they come back south on the same route. If they are short on time (train crews can work no more than 12 hours at a time), they may stop their train north of Clermont and get a cab ride back to Hawthorne.

Lebanon was, at one time, a busy railroad town. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran north and south, the New York Central ran northwest and southeast (this is the line that used to go past the Speedway), and the Central Railroad of Indiana ran east and west. All that's left is the former PRR line which is now the CSX Frankfort Branch.

 

[INDY72]

If your closer in to Indy you can hear them on the Hawthorne Yard chan., and sometimes on the Indy Belt chans as well as the road chan.

 

[cbehr91]

NS (Norfolk Southern) also runs through Frankfort. Monitor them on 160.440 and 160.860.

 

[kc9gld]

W9BU After I posted the above, I realized I was wrong about the Speedway, when my father was alive years ago, he lived along the tracks in the trailer park next to Raceway Park. We used to take walks down the tracks through Clermont to that split towards Lebanon. Here awhile back, I was doing some research on the old interurban line that paralleled todays tracks to Crawfordsville. If you cross those tracks in Pittsboro, look down them, they are not centered on that right of way, the old interurban bed can still be seen today. I found photos on the internet of tickets, schedules, and trolleys at the turn of the century. As I recall, you could board the interurban in Danville Illinois, ride to Indianapolis for 25 cents! Over the years I've done a lot of research about the interurban starting in my hometown of Danville In. I discovered the rumors of the haunted railroad bridges in Danville, are not all true, but there were deaths of the Irish immigrant employees of the railroad building those bridges. But that's a whole other factual story!

 

[kc9gld]

Twin Bridge link to the haunted railroad bridge, click the picture till you get to the ORIGIONAL Twin Bridges, its the only photo known to exist, it came from a book. Today people think the concrete arch rail bridge is one of the twins.

 

[INDY72]

2 original Set pics... 1 is on the main page near the bottom. Other is in the scroll-able set.