Florida Question

I took US41 from Dunnellon to Williston the other day and noticed that Florida Northern is replacing cross ties north of SR40 and between Williston. I was at Rainbow Springs the other day and I know the crossings have been updated to say property of Florida Northern instead of CSX.

My grandfather was a section foreman who worked that line, he put in 46 years with the railroad (started when it was the ACL and retired from the SCL in the mid 70s). Frankly, I'm somewhat relieved to know he's not alive to see what has happened to it. The demise of this line is very sad to me, and honestly I think its a big mistake. I full well understand the economics involved, but I still think its been handled poorly by CSX. One day, and probably soon, they're going to wish they had that other option of getting into Tampa/South Florida.

Hi,

I am new to railroad scanning and I have a couple of questions. I have a Uniden Bearcat scanner and I am picking up the AA Dispatcher in Jacksonville on 160.92. However, with the exception of one or two times, I can only hear the dispatcher talking unidirectionally and do not hear the train's responses. Similarly, I have heard the Brooker Sub dispatcher on 161.52 but again no train responses. Is there another frequency I should be using to hear the responses or do the trains have to be really close for me to be able to pick them up?

Also, I pick up a lot of traffic on 161.1 which is listed as the "Road" frequency. What exactly is meant by"Road?"--are they CSX road crews/maintainers or are they moving trains?

One last thing--most recently, I heard a defect detector announce something on the "Road" frequency as well but it was a very weak signal. Again, do I have to be basically right on top of a defect detector to pick it up? From the MP I heard it announce, I was within a couple of miles. Thanks for your help.

The Road frequency is the primary train operation channel. It is monitored by trains and used for general communications. The Dispatcher will call trains on the Road channel but then generally communcations between the train and dispatcher will switch to a dedicated Dispatcher channel.

If you have a handheld scanner, the range to receive detectors will be about 1-2 miles and about 5 miles for trains, depending on terrain and building obstructions. Base stations range will be 10-20 miles.

A base scanner with a good antenna on the roof should hear trains up to 10-20 miles away and base stations 25-50 miles or more, again depending on antenna height and local conditions.

clearblock wrote:The Road frequency is the primary train operation channel. It is monitored by trains and used for general communications. The Dispatcher will call trains on the Road channel but then generally communcations between the train and dispatcher will switch to a dedicated Dispatcher channel.

If you have a handheld scanner, the range to receive detectors will be about 1-2 miles and about 5 miles for trains, depending on terrain and building obstructions. Base stations range will be 10-20 miles.

A base scanner with a good antenna on the roof should hear trains up to 10-20 miles away and base stations 25-50 miles or more, again depending on antenna height and local conditions.

Thanks for the reply. I have a base scanner with a good antenna. I am pretty far away from Jacksonville yet I am able to pick up the dispatcher fairly easily. This may be a dumb question, but why is it that one can only pick up trains for 10-20 miles but yet the train but the dispatcher must be able to hear trains that may be much further away than that? If the signal is being repeated down the line, shouldn't I be able to pick up the same signal?

The dispatchers have remote base receivers and transmitters located about every 20-30 miles along the right of way. These are controlled by landline or microwave circuits back to the dispatch center.

The received mobile unit signals are not "repeated" over the VHF channels in this system.

Some railroads do use VHF "repeaters" where the dispatcher and mobiles transmit on an input channel and everything is repeated on an output channel. This works for a shortline with one or two sites near the dispatch center but it is not a good solution for a wide area system like CSX.