Hearing Lots of Messages...

Might try here Rail Fan Depot They have maps, but I don't know how detailed they are as far as mile markers and such.

I got a Windows map that shows tracks, what railroad owns them now and also who owned it in the past and a few things like that, but no mile markers. They have other items though, that could possible be more detailed.

THANKS RTR,

Since this Forum concentrates on real trains, I assume that some of you like to hear them in operation as well as see them highballing on the main or resting at a depot. 

Here's how I hear them:

I use a Uniden trunking scanner, with an outside VHF omnidirectional antenna.  The frequency shown (161.1900 Mhz), is a BNSF road channel, no. 72.  I prefer the simplex mode, as you can hear both sides of the conversation. 

What equipment do you guys use for  monitoring?

Cheers,

BAD ORDER HAL

What are you hearing Hal?  

HEY GREGG,

I'm hearing constant communications between Dispatchers, Road crews, Yard crews, Repair shop crews, and all other Railroad personnel who are important enough to require 2-way radio communications in their daily work.

I hear Road Crews transferring personnel at selected mileposts, reports to Yard Crews of a Bad Order coming in, Dispatchers diverting a Local to a siding while a late Express highballs through, dispatching a Wrecker to the site of a mishap...all in as day's (and night's) work!

Here are the BNSF and UP frequencies I find active almost constantly in my San Bernardino/ Mojave subdivision:

160.2450 Mhz

160.3200

160.4250

160.5150

160.5900

160.6500

160.9350

161.0850

161.1900

161.4150

161.4300

161.5500

161.5650

It's just another way of enjoying real trains 24/7!

BAD ORDER HAL 

Hal,

I don't know if you are connected to/with Broadcastify but if not it's worth checking out to listen to various radio streams for fire, police, ems, aircraft & Rail.

Go to the site, click on listen, choose the state, then Rail & it'll bring up what rail road's they're streaming.

Broadcastify:

 https://www.broadcastify.com/

This link is what Rail feeds they're streaming in California at this moment:

https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/stid/6/rail

You can also connect your scanner to Broadcastify & broadcast your scanner.

Dave

HEY DAVE,

Thanks, but I never knew what streaming meant!

BAD ORDER HAL

Hal

Streaming:

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end -user while being delivered by a provider.

source: Dictionary.com

Dave

Thanks, Dave.

You mean like teletype transmissions from the NBC Newsroom, or a Morgan-Stanley Ticker, or the air traffic situation at O'Hare? 

Well, I prefer my data in neat little files that start and stop at random!

Bad Order

Hal,

just like listening to the radio...

station plays a recording, it is transmitted & goes out over the air by radio wave, you recieve it with your radio  & antenna & listen to it with a speaker or headphone...

same principle online with, music, video or speech but send out in data bits and received by your computer.

Dave

HEY DAVE,

I appreciate the remedial lesson in Communications, but I've been a Ham, and currently hold a Lifetime FCC RadioTelephone License (First Class), and have spent 36 years in Aerospace electronics, specializing in Communication and Navigational systems in Military and Commercial Aircraft. (Retired from Boeing in 1998)

Cheers,

BAD ORDER HAL

Internet streaming media as it pertains to radio transmissions:

Think of it like a webcam, but instead of a camera the computer on the other end is hooked to a scanner in the area of the country you want to listen in on

---PCJ

Yo Railride,

Thank You...what Scanner/Antenna combo are you using?

Bad Order Hal,

US Army, 1960-1962, Signal Corps

What you need is something like the Altamont Press California Region Timetable. It shows each subdivision with milepost information and much, much more. It also contains maps.

You can order it direct from Altamont Press or you may be able to find it in one of your local Southern California hobby shops.

Hope this helps.

Here is a web page I remembered that I had saved in my favorites with BNSF Timetables for the San Bernardino and Cajon Subdivisions.

Let me know if any of the mileposts and locations sound familiar, based on what you're hearing on the radio. If you're between San Berdnardino and downtown LA, this is probably the territory you're picking up.

The present BNSF San Bernardino Subdivision is the old Santa Fe Los Angeles Division, Third District. 

HEY NICK,

Your BNSF Timetables are extremely helpful!  (I printed them out.)

Now I just need a map so I can correlate the mile post numbers with points on the route.   

THANKS!

Bad Order Hal

Here is yet another source of information about the San Bernardino Sub and the Cajon Sub on the SoCalRailfans forum. There are maps there too.

Like I say, if you want Southern California railfan information ask a New Yorker living in Georgia. ;-)

All the best to you. Glad I could help.

One more thing I stumbled across, Hal.

Though not in keeping with your original request, I stumbled upon this information from a 1946 ATSF guide for passengers called "Along Your Way".

I find this a fascinating snapshot-in-time of Southern California. It is replete with the origins of the names of communities along the way and descriptions of the types of industry and agricultural products produced in the area. Much of that output provided solid business for the ATSF, SP and UP.

In addition to the Third District, today's San Bernardino Sub, it describes the famous, now defunct Second District, the mainly passenger line via Pasadena and also the Fourth District from Fullerton to San Diego.

HEY NICK,

Your information on the Cajon Subdivision is the most welcome yet! 

That's the line that runs through the Victor Valley (Victorville, Apple Valley, and Hesperia), between Barstow and San Bernardino.  (I live in Apple Valley)

BTW, what is meant by 2MT and CTC in the Timetable and Railfan listings?

Bad Order

The "MT" stands for "main tracks", so 2MT indicates there are 2 main tracks along that section of the line. The Cajon Sub was expanded from 2 to 3 main tracks a few years ago. That required the removal of the only two tunnels in the Cajon Pass.

CTC is Centralized Traffic Control, a system by which track switches and signals at "controlled points" (CPs for short) are controlled remotely from a centralized dispatching center. In days gone by, this was most often accomplished using a code line on poles along the line (the wired technology being inherited from the telegraph system), but today much of the signal code is communicated by digital terrestrial radio, satellite, fiber optic and even via cell phone installations.

Here is an article on railroad traffic control systems from Trains Magazine.

Now you have your homework assignment for the remainder of the weekend.

Bet you thought you were going to get easy answers, didn't you.

BTW, I am tremendously envious of you. If I lived in Apple Valley I'd be on Cajon Pass like white on rice.

Have a great day, Sir!

One more resource, in case you want to venture into the Cajon Pass area for a bit of train watching: The Cajon Pass Group Homepage which is the home of the Railfan's Guide to Cajon Pass. 

You also may want to check out my YouTube channel. My handle there is YankInGA. I have some Cajon stuff on there. The majority of my uploads are of excursion steam, all around the US in the late '80s and '90s.

Here is the UP Challenger on Cajon:

I just have a handheld radio with an 18 inch antennae.  I only use it when I'm out chasing trains and am trying to figure out where they are and what's going on.  I was once chasing a train down the BNSF Marshall Sub in winter and wanted a shot of it going through a glacial valley.  I parked my car and ran up the hill wearing light clothing, and waited.  I waited for half an hour before realizing I was in stage 2 hypothermia.  It was below zero and I was sitting in the snow.  Train never came--they had stopped three miles up and parked it in a siding.  If I had a radio I would have known that.  I came down with pnuemonia and was very sick for a week.  First thing I did before going back out after trains several weeks later was buy a radio.  

Kent in SD

HEY NICK,

I really enjoyed the video of the Challenger on Cajon tracks!

Did you film it? 

I live northeast of the Cajon Summit in Apple Valley.  Every time we go "down the hill" we see a long BNSF train ascending the Pass, always with 3 or 4 engines pulling a long consist of double-stacked containers cars from China and Korea, on their way to distribution points across the USA!

Bad Order

Yes Sir, that's my very own camera work. My entire YouTube channel is composed of my own videos (and a few audio only clips) which I have taken through the years.

I urge you to take a visit here.

quote:

I assume that some of you like to hear them in operation

Hal,

I am willing to bet a dollar to a dozen donuts that the conversations you are hearing on the radio are very much different than the inane "Crew Talk" that emanates from our models.

Nick,

The rock formation in the background at about the 46 sec. mark in your video looks very much like a rock formation from the movie "Cars".

Jim,

The prominent formation in the center of the shot and the one in the left of the frame are known affectionately as "Ike and Mike". That location is known as "Sullivans Curve" after a man named Herb Sullivan from Placentia, who popularized the location with his photographs during the steam era.

The tilted uplift is due to the nearby San Andreas fault which runs under and through the Blue Cut area.

If the "Big One" hits, poor Bad Order Hal will be among the first to know it.

There are many sandstone formations such as this one in the pass. The nearby Mormon Rocks are well known, and located near the intersection of California route 138 and the I-15 Freeway. They are quite visible from I-15.

HEY BIG JIM,

The Railroad conversations I hear on my Scanner are all very professional and courteous, totally unlike the trash programmed into our model's sound systems!   

BAD ORDER

IF THE BIG ONE HITS.....

I will be luckier than those unfortunate California millions who live on the seaward side of the San Andreas fault.  They live on the "Pacific Plate", which will snap off like a soda cracker when the San Andreas had a catastrophic seismic shift.

Ocean-front property will then be available right below the Fault line!

I, on the other hand, live at 3000 feet elevation on the "Continental Plate", which is the foundation for the entire land mass eastward across the US from the San Andreas.

Whenever I climb the Cajon Pass on my return to the High Desert from a visit "down the hill" and pass the Mormon Rocks, I feel more relaxed, knowing I'm on the safe side of that great Fault!

"Poor Hal"?   Nope..."Lucky Hal"!

BAD ORDER HAL

Buy a California Timetable from Altamont Press.  They sell on the web, and you can Google them.

You will get an unofficial Operating Timetable that lists all the Subdivisions of all the railroads in the state, including stations and detectors by milepost, speed limits. siding lengths, radio channels used on that subdivision, and much more.