Interesting radio traffic
I keep a scanner in the ham shack that is dedicated to railroad channels. On the night stand next to my bed I have an older scanner which I keep tuned to amateur radio repeaters and railroad frequencies. Living in Oakmont I am directly across the Allegheny River from Norfolk Southern's Conemaugh line and that line is in use pretty much twenty four hours a day. A lot of freight moves along that line with a good bit of it being long trains loaded with coal.
Due to my recent indoctrination into the group know as “rail fans” I pay closer attention to the rail traffic that moves along that corridor and notice things like number and type of locomotives on the train and length and type of freight being moved. One thing that became apparent almost immediately was the the coal trains were those longest in length moving up and down those tracks.
As a side note to this line. It took me a while to realize that to the rail roads this line runs east west even though it follows the Allegheny River to the point at Pittsburgh running parallel to Route 28 which I consider a north south pathway. I would hear that trains leaving Sharpsburg or Etna were headed east and wonder if they had flotation devices attached. Apparently I was not looking at the big picture.
Back at the length of the trains which is what this post is really about. We had a discussion on the Pittsburgh Rail Fan net which is held each Thursday evening on the North Hills Amateur Radio Club's 146.880 repeater at 09:30 PM about how many cars a single diesel engine can pull. This lead to an interesting conversation on what the maximum length of a train can be. After a little research I found out from a railroad employee that at least in this area the maximum length of a train is determined on the basis of not blocking rail crossings rather than how many cars the locomotives are capable of pulling. So it caught my interest on Sunday when I heard a conversation on 160.800 mHz which is the Norfolk Southern road frequency between the dispatcher and a train headed east passing the 65 mile marker. The dispatcher asked him to hold his position for a while though I never did hear the reason why. I just know there was some reason that he could not pass Harmarville at that time. What perked my ears up was when the engineer said that he was going to stop at that point in time because his train was over eight thousand feet (8000) in length! My guess is this train was well over a mile and a half in length.
My first instinct was to grab the digital camera and head for the other side of the river thinking this would be a really good photo opportunity. Unfortunately that was not to be. Normally at that time on a Sunday morning I would be in church but I had twisted a knee and that is the reason I was home to hear the radio traffic to begin with. I was not about to hobble out for a picture of a train badly as I wanted it. Perhaps next time. After all, they do run them twenty four house a day over there.
Due to my recent indoctrination into the group know as “rail fans” I pay closer attention to the rail traffic that moves along that corridor and notice things like number and type of locomotives on the train and length and type of freight being moved. One thing that became apparent almost immediately was the the coal trains were those longest in length moving up and down those tracks.
As a side note to this line. It took me a while to realize that to the rail roads this line runs east west even though it follows the Allegheny River to the point at Pittsburgh running parallel to Route 28 which I consider a north south pathway. I would hear that trains leaving Sharpsburg or Etna were headed east and wonder if they had flotation devices attached. Apparently I was not looking at the big picture.
Back at the length of the trains which is what this post is really about. We had a discussion on the Pittsburgh Rail Fan net which is held each Thursday evening on the North Hills Amateur Radio Club's 146.880 repeater at 09:30 PM about how many cars a single diesel engine can pull. This lead to an interesting conversation on what the maximum length of a train can be. After a little research I found out from a railroad employee that at least in this area the maximum length of a train is determined on the basis of not blocking rail crossings rather than how many cars the locomotives are capable of pulling. So it caught my interest on Sunday when I heard a conversation on 160.800 mHz which is the Norfolk Southern road frequency between the dispatcher and a train headed east passing the 65 mile marker. The dispatcher asked him to hold his position for a while though I never did hear the reason why. I just know there was some reason that he could not pass Harmarville at that time. What perked my ears up was when the engineer said that he was going to stop at that point in time because his train was over eight thousand feet (8000) in length! My guess is this train was well over a mile and a half in length.
My first instinct was to grab the digital camera and head for the other side of the river thinking this would be a really good photo opportunity. Unfortunately that was not to be. Normally at that time on a Sunday morning I would be in church but I had twisted a knee and that is the reason I was home to hear the radio traffic to begin with. I was not about to hobble out for a picture of a train badly as I wanted it. Perhaps next time. After all, they do run them twenty four house a day over there.
posted by Ken / WA3FKG at 7:59 AM
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