In one way railroads are the best show in town, and they’re free!
David P. Morgan said it best:
“Big things that move are a lot more interesting than big things that don’t!”
Knowing a person’s interest(s) is a key to understanding them. When I was teaching, I always tried to keep in mind that each of my students was an expert at something. It may not be something I think is interesting or important to know, but it’s of interest to this other person, and a reminder I don’t know everything myself.
In high school, I knew a lot about Cleveland’s streetcars and railroads, and I was more than lucky to be friends with two other railfans. Driving around with a buddy and experiencing weeked and evening railfanning and photography together has made for a lifetime friendship and a trove of now 60-year old pictures and memorabilia.
In 11th grade speech class, we had to give a speech of 3-4 minutes on something we were good at. I chose as my topic how I could date photographs by looking for visual clues, and I used as my examples some photos of Cleveland’s Public Square with streetcars and later buses. As I talked, I noticed that the other students, and even the teacher, seemed really interested in what I was saying and laughed at my one or two attempts at humor. When I finished, the teacher called, “Time!” The student with the stop watch replied, “eight minutes!” Everyone laughed, including the teacher, who didn’t penalize me.
It was at that moment I realized I really could become a history teacher, because holding the attention of a room full of my peers on something related to my interest in history and railfandom, was apparently another ability I possessed.
Being a young railfan helped me to develop my skills as a teacher.
Don’t feel bad about it… celebrate it! Be thankful that you have interests. I’ve been a fan most of my life… not sure how or why that came to be… just the when part (at 7 years old).
We don’t choose our interests… they reach out and choose us! Looks like you’ve been chosen…
While you’re at it, learn the history of your area, rail-wise. You know where the rails are, learn where they were. Read books on it, look for videos, join historical groups for your favorite lines. Most current roads and fallen flags have some manner of a historical society/association/etc. They usually have some form of magazine or the like which will give information you’ll find interesting.
Take a look at the industries that caused the railroads to come, and the industries that came as a result of the railroads.
About a year and a half ago, I was asked to present a program on railroads in this area, specifically the village that was, at the time, celebrating 150 years. I’m not going to claim that it was the best presentation ever - even I saw flaws - but I like to think that those in attendance came away with a better idea of what the railroad did there. And we were sitting less than 100 yards from the site of the station (now long gone). Several of the attendees later told me they had relatives who worked for the railroad.
If you have a local model railroad club, get involved. You’d be surprised at the knowledge that sits around the layout at operating and work sessions. Sometimes getting to know those people will help you with your railfanning as they may be able to provide tips on watching and other insights.
More than anything, be safe and enjoy!
Forum question: Is it preferred to reply to the last post in the thread or to reply to the OP? Some of the reply may involve parts of the thread beyond what the OP asked.
I had a question that may help other railfans. Some of the people making videos (JT included, who I like as a youtuber) have information about the trains (NS36A, CSX L120-26…), the routes they take (giving start and end locations, times they make the trip, per week…). I have never come across this information. Is it readily available to the public?
Do freight trains have a regular schedule, like passenger trains? I see a lot of youtubers saying that they waited for hours to finally see a train, that would seem to indicate that there is no regular schedule.
Since it’s not always possible to have the latest post on a thread be the one you want to reply to, it’s usually best to use the ‘quote’ function. After you click on “reply” for the post you want to comment on, and get the reply window, highlight the portion that you want to reply to and click on “quote.” Then, after the /quote tag, add your comments. If you want to comment on the entire post as a whole, just click on the quote button and the entire post will be carried into the window with quote tags around it.
You’ll note that I actually used the quote function three times in this reply.
Most such sites that have that info are “crowd sourced,” like wikis. Contributors note information about a given train and submit it. F’rinstance, there is a site with CSX train symbols, and the Deshler and Fostoria rail cams both have an associated spreadsheet with the day’s trains. Others may as well.
The railroads don’t publish that informa
As of the time I retired, CSX SCHEDULED all their merchandise, automotive and intermodal trains. The trains they, for the most part, ran daily. These schedules contained specified depature times from origin, intermediat times and arrival times at destination. These schedules also define what traffic (or blocks) the trains are to originate with, exchange or reclassify while inroute, and arrive destination with. Additionally Local Freight (or Road Switchers) have designated origin and destination times as well as the industries that are to be serviced during the trip. Within yards, some of the Yard Jobs are scheduled to the extent of the industries they are to serve and in relative terms when that industry is to be serviced. Operations supervision is graded, for pay purposes, on how well the schedules on their territory are followed as measured by a variety of metrics - On Time Departure & Arrival, Right car moving on the Right Train, Terminal dwell are some of those metrics. The tolerance for On Time for freight operations is much larger than it is for passenger operation. At the time I was still working, the Amtrak tolerance was 10 minutes. The CSX freight train tolereance was Two Hours.
Bulk Commodity Trains are customer driven. When the ’
The regular manifests and intermodals have a service schedule. They’ll normally be called within a specific window out of their originating yard daily. At least they try to. The normal call times can be pushed back due to locomotives not ready or crews not rested. If the train traverses a few crew districts, delays due to almost anything can cause the train to be later the further you get from the originating yard.
Jeff
When I was a kid back in the 1970’s you could set your watch (give or take 10-15 min) to a good portion of the freight trains on the Milwaukee Road Twin Cities mainline through Brookfield, WI. Those days slowly faded away from the 1980’s to the 1990’s.
I believe the Jawtooth guy uses a RR scanner. So he gets advance notice. Not sure though.
While getting later and later is what normally happens to schedule; there are times that trains can perform much better than their schedules. Everything is On Time at origin, there may not be traffic to require scheduled set offs and/or pick ups and thus a train gains time against its schedule. There many be less than the ‘schedule expected’ traffic across the route of the train and it gains even more time against its schedule. Unless there is SPECIFIC traffic a train MUST handle, freight trains can operate well ahead of their schedules.
Every railroad territory has a ‘normal’ flow of traffic, scheduled or unscheduled. The normal flows acknowledge that daylight hours Monday through Friday are heavy with MofW required inspections and works claiming track time. The Train Dispatchers job is more than just running trains, it is managing track time so that MofW gets the track time they need as well as attempting to run trains On Time, no matter if the trains are Passenger, Through Freight or Local Freights - everyone is competing for track time.
A couple of things to add to what Balt said:
Under PSR, the ‘normal’ practice if a train gets ‘ahead of schedule’ is to run in lower notch, or even stop and shut down all but one of the engines, etc. to save (or look as if you’re saving) fuel. The ‘schedule’ doesn’t have the criticality that a passenger schedule would as far as arrival at intermediate points is concerned, but there’s considerably less work and possibility for accident if moves are ‘precisely scheduled’ as expected or planned.
A number (possibly, most) of the unit coal trains that run through my area have sufficient demand that they run on a fairly observable daily schedule, presumably tied to proper equipment utilization. Here an additional concern comes in. Every time you brake a train that size, you lose a measurable amount of shoe and tread life; every time you accelerate it from rest up to track speed you spend something like $150 you didn’t have to; if you have ‘commodity’ intermodal trains in the traffic mix, it may be more sensible to stab them rather than stopping the heavy commodity mineral train – so the coal train gets priority in the scheduled window it ‘gets to’ whether it happens to have been delayed at some earlier segment.
Same here, …I recall hearing the trains on the nearby Wabash blowing for a series of crossings across the river, and one day started logging them. And to my amusement noticed an unmistakable pattern. Precise Scheduling!!
Being a single track main with ample passing sidings, time seemed the ideal mechanism to make it all work.
A westbound CSX train sounds its horn for the crossing near my house at 10:07 PM almost every evening. Sometimes it varies, but most of the time it’s within a couple of minutes or so.
Likewise, when I walk my dog in the parks, there’s an eastbound CSX autorack train about 7:55 AM, and a southbound W&LE train (crossing over CSX & the Cuyahoga River on a long truss bridge) within a few minutes of the CSX.
These three trains (at least) seem to keep to a schedule, and thank goodness. I’m getting some good videos as a result, and a side benefit to walking Sheila.
In the Before Days, when I had to go to into the office, I worked at an office directly alongside the CSX tracks through downtown DC. Depending on the day of the week, there would reliably be either an intermodal or manifest freight come through when I took my lunch. If I went to the platform at L’Enfant and saw greens, I’d wait for a few minutes to see what came. If there were red signals, I’d go get lunch. After I ate, there would usually peek at the signals again. If there was a green in either direction, I could afford to wait a few minutes for the traffic. The same transpired at around 3 in the afternoon when I took a break. If there was nice weather, I’d go outside and check for greens. There was typically something coming through around then.
Schedule or not, it was pretty reliable.
In the link below, you can see that, after the train passes, he gives the train symbol/number and the route. He does it for almost every train. Where does the symbol/number come from?
https://youtu.be/W_IYcJ_9df0?t=1126
Does the EoTD give any information?
The EOT only gives electronic “chirps” when communicating with the head end. All it does, unless you have the receiver that can decode the chirps, is alert one to the presence of a train within a few miles.
Even if you could decode the chirps, the information is only air brake pressure, movement, high visibility marker status and battery status. Even air turbine EOTs have a battery. It does not give out train symbols.
Jeff
Once again, a lot of that information is crowd sourced, combined with familiarity of the operation. As Balt points out, the trains do run at consistent times (some moreso than others - especially if performance is specified in a contract). Here is a spreadsheet from Deshler:
And here is a website with CSX train symbols. The curators of this site not only have gathered origins and destinations, but connecting symbols for other Class 1’s. I don’t follow the other Class 1’s, so don’t know if there are equivalent sites for them.
http://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/CSX_Train_Symbols
Some of this information comes from listening to crews calling signals. This can be especially true if someone doesn’t have all the trains on a given line memorized.
Other information can come from “inside sources” - friendly railroad employees willing to share pertinent information (usually anonymously).
[quote user=“tree68”]
Perry Babin
In the link below, you can see that, after the train passes, he gives the train symbol/number and the route. He does it for almost every train. Where does the symbol/number come from?
Once again, a lot of that information is crowd sourced, combined with familiarity of the operation. As Balt points out, the trains do run at consistent times (some moreso than others - especially if performance is specified in a contract). Here is a spreadsheet from Deshler:
And here is a website with CSX train symbols. The curators of this site not only have gathered origins and destinations, but connecting symbols for other Class 1’s. I don’t follow the other Class 1’s, so don’t know if there are equivalent sites for them.
http://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/CSX_Train_Symbols
Some of this information comes from listening to crews calling signals. This can be especially true if someone doesn’t have all the trains on a given line memorized.
Other information can come from "inside source
This type of information may seem like common knowledge but when you don’t know precisely what to search for, it’s difficult to find.
Thanks for the links and other replies.
In my country we have the Canadian Trackside Guide, a book which is published annually by a volunteer group in Ottawa (Bytown Railway Society). It’s essentially a compilation of railroad information including train numbers and radio frequencies. Definitely worth picking up a copy if you’re railfanning in the Great White North.
Any information about train numbers and freight ‘schedules’ will have originated from an inside source (like me[;)]) and after a few months or years it may no longer be reliable. In particular CN’s train numbering system seems to operate a bit like how points are awarded on “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”…