What do you monitor on the railroads?

[safetyobc]

I am not in any way bashing so please don't take it that way. I am curious to know what you guys are monitoring by listening to the railroads traffic.

We have a rail line that picks up lumber in my town and then back out the way it came in. Very low speed (at least through town). The only radio traffic they have is telling other workers how many cars to drop etc. Also they have a runner (guy in a pickup) who drives and blocks the crossings when the train is backing in and he'll give the all clear to the operator. That's about the extent of it.

I was just wondering what there is to monitor on rail in higher traffic areas?

 

[n4voxgill]

i live by the two main lines between south texas and the rest of the nation. Get a lot of trainload of automobiles made in mexico and heading north. There are several large yards with at least 3 sets of crews putting together outbound trains.

They all have to get permission to go onto the main lines, and then get off as passenger trains or through trains come through.

Some times tempers flare as crews end up sittting for long periiods of time because they can't cross a mainline.

At one point near my house the two main lines are only about 1/3 mile apart and Iwill go down and park and watch all the traffic. In town there is an interlocker where the tracks cross and the dispatchers work to get everyone through it.

If your not a rail buff I can see where it is not very interesting. Of course I would never listen to mcdonals or walmart. So plenty for everyone to listen to.

 

[jmp883]

As a current railfan/railroad modeler and former train dispatcher I can tell you railroad listening can be very interesting. Of course if the lines near you see little activity the radio traffic will be correspondingly limited.

I worked for New Jersey Transit and we controlled commuter rail service for the entire state from one location. There were 4 desks that covered the whole state. I worked on what was called the Mainline desk. That was 90 miles of double track railroad from Hoboken, NJ to Port Jervis, NY with a branch to Spring Valley, NY. We were responsible for all train and maintenance movements on those rails. In addition to our scheduled passenger trains we also had to weave freight trains and maintainers into the mix! Even though the passenger trains run on the same schedule every day there is still quite a bit of radio traffic. Monitoring that can be pretty interesting, especially if you're familiar with the territory.

Even if you're not a railfan, it can be interesting listening. Just remember, most of us started listening to scanners with little, or no, knowledge of what we were listening to, but within a short amount of time we learned. Rail monitoring is no different.

Give it a try! You might enjoy it!

 

[safetyobc]

Oh I listen to my local train line but like I said it has very little radio traffic and only carries cargo mostly lumber and wood chips. I guess it never actually hit me how complicated and how much traffic would be on a large system. I would likely monitor if I lived in a larger train populated area. I listen to about everthing from police, fire, HAM, Streets and Roads Depts., private companies, mostly everthing but CB.

 

[weather4ar]

On the Union Pacific's - ex-Mo-Pac Van Buren Subdivision, you'll hear dispatchers talking to freight trains, maintenance of way, and signal employees. Primarily they are issuing Track Warrants, or specific orders which permit movement or work between two points. Train crews or other employees will repeat the instructions back to the dispatcher who approves the warrant, which will be repeated back to the dispatcher, along with the approval time and dispatcher's initials. This is repeated when the limits of the warrant are cleared. The crews contact the dispatcher through a 3 digit dialtone keypad in the microphone. When the dispatcher is alerted, a tone is received by the crew and the dispatcher will answer as duties allow.

Also, you'll hear the meets between two or more trains at various sidings.
UP also has a rule that the crew must call all signals displaying yellow or red lights, indicating restrictions in speed or movement. The colors are the same as a traffic light. Green means proceed, yellow means approach,
red means stop. If the crews encounter a red signal, they have a warrant to move, and there is no known opposing traffic, they call the dispatcher to get approval to move.

Another interesting thing to listen to is the Wayside Defect Detector. These devices scan trains for hot wheel journal boxes, or dragging equipment, and report each defect on the road channel. When there are no defects, the detector might sound like this..."UP Detector, Mile Post 368 Point 7..No Defects...Axel Count 427, Train Speed..45 MPH..Temperature 68 Degrees. Detector Out.

Train crews often talk amongst each other, and are notorious for their humorous bull sessions while moving. UP Police, maintenance of way, and signal employees, also work on the road channel.

All of these things are especially helpful to rail fans who chase and photograph trains.

I am not in any way bashing so please don't take it that way. I am curious to know what you guys are monitoring by listening to the railroads traffic.

We have a rail line that picks up lumber in my town and then back out the way it came in. Very low speed (at least through town). The only radio traffic they have is telling other workers how many cars to drop etc. Also they have a runner (guy in a pickup) who drives and blocks the crossings when the train is backing in and he'll give the all clear to the operator. That's about the extent of it.

I was just wondering what there is to monitor on rail in higher traffic areas?

 

[erikTromatowski]

I live about 100 feet from the Northeast Corridor (the busiest railline in the US, well over 200 trains a day), and about 10 miles from the main freight line into NYC from the south and west (the Lehigh Line). So usually I'll eaither just listen while at home, and its quite useful while out railfaning and chasing the many local lines around me. And belive me, theres a TRAINLOAD (pun intended) of radio traffic.

 

[INDY72]

OK here is what I usually monitor

Local Controls (dispatcher/yardmasters)
Security/Police
Yard Ops
Special Ops *Derailments/Special Purpose Trains/Local EMA interop*
Repair Ops

 

[Starion]

Wow, everyone has a lot of different intrests. I can't hear much on Amtrak's Northeast corridor. I can hear the matainince and yard channels though. I can also hear an Amtrak / CSX road channel near Alexandria, VA.

I think I live 10 miles from the Pacific line. I forgot which lines run near Alexandria, VA. There are two - on coming west from Manassas towards D.C and another running from the south.

I mostly listen to Washington D.C.'s Metrorail system. Nothing exciting happens unless a train breaks down durring rush hour. Before and after that Nation's Baseball game, the channels are fairly busy. I hear lots of radio traffic during major events on the National Mall and games at the MCI Center.

 

[radioscan]

Luckily I live near a lot rail operations. Here is what I listen to:

• CSX Toldeo Sub 160.230 Road
  160.290 AR Dispatcher
  
  NS Dayton District 160.9800
  
  NS Reed Yard (Middletown) 161.0700
  NS Moraine Yard 161.0700
  
  NS New Castle Sub 160.440
  CSX Cincinnati Terminal Sub 161.100
  CSX Excello/Lind Yard 161.160
  CSX MoW 160.785
  
  I&O Cincinnati Ops 161.3850
  I&O Logan Sub 161.220
  
  AK Steel Middletown Works (lots of switching) 855.6375

 

[erikTromatowski]

This is what I listen to:

161.010 - Amtrak NEC (Trenton NJ to NYC)
161.295 - Amtrak PD

160.860 - Conrail North Jersey Dispatch (Lehigh Line, Browns Yd. Div, Port reading Sec, etc.
160.800 - Conrail South Jersey Dispatch (Beasleys Pt. Sec., Pavonia Yard, etc)

160.980 - CSX Trenton Line

161.235 - NJT Newark Div. (NJCL, RVL, ACL)
161.400 - NJT Hoboken Div. (M&E, M-B, Main, PVL, GB, etc)
160.830 - NJT PD

161.070 - NS Lehigh Line

 

[quickpicks]

I mainly listen to the CP end to end channels, Utilities, and about 20 marine channels used at the terminals.

 

[michael_m_rubino]

Don't forget, if there is a medical emergency, an accident at the crossing, chemical leak, or derail, you can bet you will hear radio traffic from the crew or dispatcher to summon police, fire, ems or hazmat. So, you may be aware of an incident even before you hear the call on your PS freqs.

Where I live there is a two track freight mainline, commuter rail lines, Amtrak Downeaster. So I listen to:

161.16 Guilford Rail System (Boston & Maine) Dispatcher/Defect Detector
161.52 Train to Dispatch
161.400 Yard
161.235, 160.23 Guilford Rail Police

160.32 Mass Bay Commuter Rail
160.59 Mass Bay Commuter Rail
160.875 MBCR Yards

161.295 Amtrak PD

 

[medic307]

Don't forget, if there is a medical emergency, an accident at the crossing, chemical leak, or derail, you can bet you will hear radio traffic from the crew or dispatcher to summon police, fire, ems or hazmat. So, you may be aware of an incident even before you hear the call on your PS freqs.

Absolutely! I've heard at least three incidents requiring our EMS response several minutes before we were officially notified by phone. Another interesting aspect of working a RR incident, the guys on the train often don't know exactly where they are or were when something happens, at least in terms of driving to their location. Makes for a challenging response.

Russell

 

[MacombMonitor]

It's weird, I've been scanning for over thirty years, and I never once scanned the rails! This topic caught my eye for that reason. Now, after reading all the post, I realize I may be missing something. Michigan has a lot of railroads, so it will be interesting to see what's out there.

 

[K2KOH]

Metro North is pretty cool to listen to, as well as Metro North PD. However, nobody from the city has said anything about the most complex railroad...the NYC Subway System! When I lived in NYC, NYC Transit was interesting to listen to. I grew up during the dark days of the subway, and used to listen to trains being put out of service, trains on fire, emergencies on trains, etc. Listening to the Transit Police was interesting as well.

 

[Starion]

I'm too far from New York City to llisten to their subway system. I will listen to them when I visit New York City. Thanks for reminding me that NYC has a subway system.

 

[kb2vxa]

Hi rail fans and all,

"I'm too far from New York City to llisten to their subway system. I will listen to them when I visit New York City."

I hope you don't plan on walking around with a portable 911 or no. You'll find the rail systems in and around NY to be very unfriendly places for radios and cameras, you'll get arrested if you're not robbed first. One thing for sure, those NYCTA repeaters can be heard loud and clear at the Jersey Shore and pretty much within a 30 mile radius with any decent antenna. If you stay anywhere near the city you'll hear it all on a portable with a duckie. BTW, there's lots more, don't forget heavy rail operations, the city lies under an RF blanket on railroad frequencies alone.

The guy in Highland Park NJ reminded me of all the great radio traffic in the area, lots of rail ops and the Amtrak NE Corridor is only one of them. I grew up half a mile from the PRR main in Rahway, that very same heavily traveled NEC it is today. Lucky guy, he's in range of just about everything I used to monitor, besides the main there are several yards with everything from soup to nuts, mostly nuts on the OI hack. (;->)

Now all I have with any regular radio traffic is the New Jersey Transit Shore Line road and the Newark Div. police so that's all the RR that's in the scanner. That's how I hear fans with cameras getting busted like I keep saying and plenty of crossing violations too.

You'd be surprised how many, crazy people challenging speeding trains is more common than you think. Since the line down here has a crossing every other block through town after town the numbers are legion and several times a year someone looses the battle with the train. I saw the craziest thing at the station last year, one was stopped so the police could remove an unruly passenger, the gates timed out and went up. No problem until the engineer got underway, they just kept coming right through all that horn blowing until he finally had to creep past and block them, still one fool nearly got plowed out of the way.

Back to radio, since my Icom 706Mk2G ham rig has an "extra" band I use it to scan continuously across the railroad VHF sub-band. I am making a list of all the active frequencies and identifying them as best I can, some don't seem to jive with the database so maybe I'll fix that one day. So far I have identified a full page list and with a bit of cross referencing I'll get it right and share it with you. The trouble is it's slow because much is just plain hard to hear and what does come in well does so rather infrequently. Now if I could only put an antenna atop the 300' Coast Guard tower...........

One last thought, being a rail fan since I was a kid I found it to be one great hobby, radio came along rather late in the game. There's nothing like watching what you have been listening to (especially while sitting next to the tower operator) but BE CAREFUL AND STAY WELL CLEAR OF THE TRACKS! I can't stress safety enough, especially after having the Congressional Limited creep up my backside at 90MPH one fine day. Like they say, "That'll learn ya.".

 

[TXFirefighter112]

Where would I find rail freqs used in North Texas? Im in Carrollton and not more than 1 mile south of me is a good little rail yard where the tracks of 3 or 4 companies cross eachother. BNSF and UP are two of them, I think KCS is the 3rd but Im not sure, the 4th will soon be Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail. Someone posted the link to the FCC site where you can look up freqs, but you have to know the coordinates or the license holder's name, cant just type in "Railroad" and have it return what you want.

 

[weather4ar]

North Texas RR Freqs

Try this site - http://rrfreq.railspot.com/RailSpot Frequencies/RRFREQ.HTM - It's an excellent reference!

Where would I find rail freqs used in North Texas? Im in Carrollton and not more than 1 mile south of me is a good little rail yard where the tracks of 3 or 4 companies cross eachother. BNSF and UP are two of them, I think KCS is the 3rd but Im not sure, the 4th will soon be Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail. Someone posted the link to the FCC site where you can look up freqs, but you have to know the coordinates or the license holder's name, cant just type in "Railroad" and have it return what you want.

 

[TXFirefighter112]

Thanks!