A railfan from the Johnstown, Pa area has recently started a Live scanner feed for NS’ West Slope’ between Johnstown and Cresson, Pa. You can hear the Pittsburgh East Dispatcher instructing trains where to couple and uncouple helpers, helpers will get markups on trains they are about to push East upgrade toward Cresson and beyond…tonnage and car counts…you can also hear defect detectors trip and can track trains as they call signals identified by milepost. Action on the South Fork Secondary Coal branch can be heard, and also some Sand Patch and Pittsburgh Mon line can be heard. To access the feed, open your media player, click file, and then open URL…Do not go to a regular websearch for this, and type in the following URL: 207.255.29.40:8000 and it should work…I had to upload Realplayer as it would not work with my AOLmediaplayer for some reason, said file too congested on that one. Dave Williams @ nsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
…Just went over to my RealPlayer and “tuned in” to the Pittsburg E. DP and got some short burst of conversations…Wasn’t long enough transmissions to understand what was happening. Perhaps others are longer and more understandable. Interesting.
Unless you are familiar with the territory, you have to listen to it for awhile to get the understanding…The short bursts you are hearing are usually Trains calling signal indications…Pittsburgh East will usually be heard telling trains where to stop and cut off or attach helpers, he will also issue Form D’s to Trackcars and also for Hopper trains running up and down the South Fork Coalbranch…that line is averaging around one or more loaded trains a day…CP C is Conemaugh, where helpers are usually coupled on and off the West Slope, though they are also coupled on and off further West, at Conpitt, or Wilmerding. MP 275 is the Johnstown Station…JW is just West of C…271 is Staple Bend, 268.1 is Mineral Point, SO is South Fork, 258 is Portage, 254.7 is Lilly and MO is Cresson…I visit there so often that it is all familiar to me on the radio…Dave Williams @ nsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
Dave -
Thanks for posting this information. Been listening in a bit and enjoy listening to the live conversations.
Brian