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From The RadioReference Wiki

Finding Specific Railroad Frequencies

A great place to start is the Database for your particular area. Sometimes, there is not any information to be had and this is where it can be fun! Many scanners have a built-in search feature for different radio services, including railroads.

If you live in the USA you can find all the railroad licenses in your area with a visit to the FCC's website.

Select your state from the drop-down menu. Then select your county, or leave it on "All Counties". Be aware that large or populous states can return a long list of results, and it may take some time to appear.

On the Frequency line, enter 160.215 in "Begin" and 161.565 in "End".

Scroll to the bottom of the page and hit "Submit Query".

As always, be sure to submit any new information for inclusion in the RRDB!

If you don't find it here or in the database, feel free to post a message in the Railroad-Railfan Monitoring Forum on RadioReference.

Amtrak routes and frequencies can be found on the On Line On Track Amtrak page

AAR (American Association of Railroads) channels

The railroads have had standardized radios for a long time (from at least the early 1950's), and the primary band they are assigned is the in the VHF Hi range. There are official channel numbers, for North America, starting at AAR channel #2 (frequency: 159.810Mhz) to AAR channel #97 (frequency: 161.565Mhz). Between channel #2 and #97 are sequential channel numbers, with no gaps, with the frequency stepped up by 15khz (also with no gaps or bigger frequency jumps). The first few channels are used only in Canada.

In the locomotive (and other locations) is a radio with only channel numbers, settable to channels 2-97 for both send and receive. Thus a certain region, all trains, out on the road, will be tuned into the main dispatch channels on 6666, as displayed on the radio in the locomotives (a lot of the BNSF railroad in the far western USA uses the channel pair 6666). The first two digits are the transmit channel, and the remain two digits are the receive channel. Thus, when listening to railroad employees, they usually only mention going to channel numbers, not frequencies (example: the dispatcher telling a crew to switch over to the next district by saying "go to channel 6464"). So, in order to follow conversations, it is good to either have the frequency to channel number chart with you, or use the Alpha Tag feature of the newer scanners to program in the channel to frequency table so you can glance at the scanner display to see what the AAR channel number is.

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