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For my Sunset Limited trip, can someone tell me where I can find a current USA Railroad map? I have also heard of people talking about haveing radios that they can listen in to the railroad signal. Where can I get one of these and how much. Obviously the rail road map would need route frequancies.
smitty195 Member # 5102
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Radio Shack sells scanners---a scanner is a radio that picks up frequencies that you program into it.
To get the frequencies, you have several options. Here are a few:
1) Pick up an Altamont Press timetable at this web page:
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Union Pacific has a couple of interesting maps of their system that are publically available on their web site. There is one for high/low elevations on their system that will tell you the elevation and location of the highest elevation and lowest elevation on your route. BNSF has detailed division maps available on theirs. The BNSF Gulf Division will get you the mileposts of the various place names between New Orleans and Iowa Jct. (near Lake Charles LA) The rest of the way west is on UP rails.
I sent you a PM concerning some possible other information you might find of interest.
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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One word about scanners, get one long before you need it. It takes some time to learn how to use it and program it with the frequencies you want. They do not come pre-programmed. If you're technically savvy, you shouldn't have too much trouble, but I wouldn't recommend it to a technophobe. I believe some scanner models can be programmed through your computer, which can help simplify things.
When shopping make sure the scanner covers the frequencies you want to listen to. Not all models cover the same frequencies. The main railroad channels are in the range from 160.215 MHz to 161.565 MHz. Some peripheral railroad functions operate around 452-453 MHZ as well, but these are mostly things like security, switching yards, and data.
When you're not on a train, you may want to use your scanner to listen to local police and fire calls, or air traffic control from your local airport. Most scanners have plenty of channels to allow you to program all of these into it and still have plenty of channels left over.
Radio Shack sells a book that lists all of the frequencies you will need and then some. The books are sold for your particular region. (Mine covers California, Oregon and Washington.) You'll need that when you buy a scanner. As Smitty noted there are websites that list railroad frequencies for specific Amtrak routes. Different frequencies are used for different segments of each route.
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