Schedules or Insider Knowledge

@BillYo414 posted:

Today I got rambling on Youtube and found myself watching some railfan videos. What threw me off is how these people knew what train was coming, when it was come, and all these other details.

Maybe they are smart enough to know from experience which trains operate at roughly what times of the day or night.

It made me curious...how the heck do they know? I asked for CSX schedules in the early 2000s so I could go watch trains with my friends on our bikes. It's probably for the best that this didn't work out because we were kids but I was told they didn't give out schedules for reasons related to terrorism.

Are schedules available now?

No.

Or are these guys friends with railroad employees?

Neither. They have learned from experience, plus listening to the railroad radio channels with a scanner. Plus, lots of time spent at their favoriot photo locations.  

Ah, I see. I suppose I'll just rely on crossings to catch trains then!

As Jack notes; a scanner can let you know train symbols. In many areas, conductors will call the indication on wayside signals noting the name or number for the signal installation along with their train symbol, leader number and direction of travel.

Curt

I guess you would have to be dedicated to get the schedules and stuff figured out. Hopefully I'll have the time one day!

One way to start is to familiarize yourself with the train symbols for the railroad or railroads nearest you. I’ve pasted in a link to a website that lists this info for the various railroads along with origin and destination pairs and frequency. I can’t speak for all of these but, the info for NS, while useful and mostly accurate, can lag reality at times.

Freight railroads may claim to be scheduled but, take this with a grain of salt. Speaking for my extended area here in northwest Georgia, you can generally expect to see certain NS and CSX trains within the same approximate 2-4 hour window each day.

If you are familiar with Virtual Railfan’s network of rail webcams and any of those are within an hour or two of your home, they can also familiarize you with what’s running and when. I’ve included a link to their website but, many of their locations are also available on YouTube.

And buy a scanner. Without a scanner it’s like quail hunting with your eyes closed.

Curt

http://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

https://virtualrailfan.com/