05-31-2011, 07:32 AM
Gary S Wrote:So how doea a person go about getting all that info? There are plenty of trains going through my area in Houston, so how does one know what is what and when?
Get a scanner and use it regularly. For less than $200 you can get a radio and car antenna that will greatly enhance your railfanning experience. Freight trains aren't scheduled, but they do tend to run within a few hour window each day. BNSF and Union Pacific use alpha codes for train symbols that are rarely transmitted on the radio; dispatchers tend to identify trains by lead engine number. CSX and Norfolk Southern use numeric codes for train symbols that are transmitted on the radio quite frequently. I saw over 100 trains in three days and can say I only missed one train symbol all weekend, and I was in somewhat unfamiliar territory at that.
The more you railfan -- and pay attention -- you'll realize you see the same trains over and over. Pay attention to the power assigned, how the cars are blocked, and the route they take at junctions. You may not know for sure that the train is the HBARGAL or the ZYCLD but you'll have a pretty good idea that there's an eastbound manifest regularly in the morning or a mostly Pacer stack train south in the evening.