[Newbie] Block Signal ummmm reader things???

Ok. Please keep in mind I'm not sure what I'm talking about. But. I've read how rail signals work, where trains come into blocks the lights come on etc etc. But what they always seem to say as a foot note is that, lots of trains will reproduce these signal lights in the cab. How does this system work? I do lots of bike rides "near" train tracks, and If I could have some kind of small receiver or whatever to keep with me and see when the block would light up as a train approached, I'd be able to make my way over to the tracks and I wouldn't miss so many trains. Is there such a thing? Am I totally mixed up here?

There is no radio signal involved. The locomotive has an inductive pick-up device down near the rails that senses a coded current in the rails and translates that into a signal displayed in the cab. This is only in places that have cab signals, such as Amtrak NEC.

I see. Well scratch that idea :-/

l008com wrote: ...
I do lots of bike rides "near" train tracks, and If I could have some kind of small receiver or whatever to keep with me
...

Perhaps a scanner set to the frequency of the EOT device ( 457.9375), would that work?

keotaman wrote:

l008com wrote: ...
I do lots of bike rides "near" train tracks, and If I could have some kind of small receiver or whatever to keep with me
...

Perhaps a scanner set to the frequency of the EOT device ( 457.9375), would that work?

That would work. Though it would be useless if you were near a yard because you would be picking up a bunch of EOT transmissions. I only listen to EOT in remote areas because of that fact. It is possible to decode them with ATCSmon but requires a modification to the scanner to get the lower audio frequencies the headphone output has filtered out.