From: pierson@cimill.enet.dec.com (Dave Pierson)
Subject: Re: scanner and train questions
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: 31 JUL 92 11:24:10    

In article <1992Jul31.134137.5114@das.harvard.edu>, neal@endor.uucp (Lisa Neal) 
writes, in part:

>Hello all....... I have loved trains for a long time, and I
>have chosen Amtrak time and time again for my traveling needs instead of
>flying.  

>*       On every western train, about two-thirds of AmtrakUs coach cars
>are the modern, comfortable Superliners.  However, the remaining one
>third are the unpleasant, ugly, and very uncomfortable older cars.  Why
>doesn't Amtrak convert its entire fleet to the Superliners?  It seems
>unfair that two passengers that pay the same price could be given two
>very different cars to spend their journey on.
	The new cars cost money.  AMTRAK doesn't have a lot.  Also, the US
	passenger car buiilding capability is somewhat limited...

>*      (Probably the most important question)  I am going on a cross-
>country Amtrak trip in two weeks, and I have purchased a scanner,
>primarily so I will be able to listen to the engineer and the rest of
>the crew, such as people have discribed in messages past, so I will be
>able to know "what the hell is going on", a frustrating thing when the
>crew won't give me a straight answer as to why we have been on a siding
>for 3 hours in a row at  night!  I would be indebted to any of you if
>you could give me the best frequencies to hear the crew on each of these
>four routes:
	Most modern scanners have the ability to search, so search for half an
	hour or so.  I reccomend a set of featherweight (or other) headphones.

>Northeast Corridor[Night Owl]   (Boston- D.C.)
	Several.  160.920(?)  160.800 161.070.  Others.

>Capitol Limited    (D.C.- Chicago)
>Empire Builder     (Chicago - Seattle)
>Coast Starlight    (Seattle - L.A.)

>If not, please tell me if there is a railroad
>scanner book I could buy, and where.
	There are, dunno where best to reccomend.  Many are regional, not suited
	to your purpose.  I reccomend search_ing with the scanner.  Essentially
	all traffic will be between (roughly) 160.5 and 161.5.

>*      When I was passing through the Albany station several weeks ago,
>I saw the Turboliner fleet maintenence station.  I was impressed, but a
>fellow passenger told me they were just cosmetically different from the
>other Amtrak trains.
	The "fellow passenger" was wrong or misinformed.  They are totally
	different in body and power (gas turbine("jet engine"))

>Can it really achieve "turbo" speeds, or is it
>just a sleeker, more modern-looking train with no different performance?
	Fast, not that much faster.

>*      How is the position of railroad switches changed? Do people have
>to go out and switch them by hand, or are they thrown electrically from
>a central dispatch station?
	Both.  Frequently used switches, and switches in "main lines" are
	commonly remote controlled, either froma local interlocking tower or
	from a CTC (Centralized Traffic Control) machine.  The technology is
	changing/computerizing with more and more centralization of control in
	one place.  Speeds operation and improves safety (so long as fail-safe
	is done right...).  System is fail-safe agains com line failures, etc.

	Seldom used switches are manually thrown, with significant ones tied
	into the CTC (or equivalent) so the dispatcher can see what is going
	on.  Sometimes the DS can "lock out" the local control.

>*      How does the dispatch station know where the trains are? Is it
>just by the engineer notifying them, or is it done by some computerized
>system in the track?
	Varies.  Most common is by track circuits, in which the train indicates
	occupancy of a "block" by shorting the rails together.  This gets
	"datagrammed" to the CTC center.  (short hand, simplified description).
	A couple of newer techniques, where the loco spots trackside beacons
	and counts axle revs to keep track of position, which gets radioed to
	central are coming on line.  And sometimes the enginner (or trackside
	tower operator) just:

		"calls clear of location mumblefratz"

thanks
dave pierson			|the facts, as accurately as i can manage,
Digital Equipment Corporation	|the opinions, my own.
146 Main Street			|I am the NRA.
Maynard, Mass
01754				pierson@cimnet.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing."  A J Raffles
Newsgroups: rec.railroad