Railroad books?

Question

I am trying to learn as much as I can about the rr. I was wondering if there was any books or any good web sites that have stuff on the rr? I would like to know what all the signals mean? Red, green,yellow? Some of the fren. when using a scanner? My list could go on. Thanks much Michael

Answer 1

Here is a very extensive international site with a lot of good links.  By the time you have finished with it you will know a lot more.  Also look at the Ultimate Steam and DLM pages for some surprising developments there.

http://www.trainweb.com/

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/index.html

http://www.dlm-ag.ch/index2-en.htm

Answer 2

Here is a list of all North American Railroad Frequencies for your scanner   (Must be within near that railroad to pick up the frequency)

http://zippy.ci.uiuc.edu/~roma/rr-freqs/...

Here is the website to CSX's Signal System

(Seaboard Side)

http://www.amdg.ws/Seaboard%20Signals.pd...

(B&O)

http://www.pacerfarm.org/sigind/sigind.h...

(C&O)

http://www.wvrail.railfan.net/signals/in...

Union Pacific Signals

http://www.lundsten.dk/us_signaling/aspe...

Couldn't find anything on NS or BNSF signal systems.

Here is some good railroad reading to check out.

NS & Hurricane Katrina

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/newjourn...

Introduction to Railroads

http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/rail/rai...

I hope this helps!

Edward

Answer 3

The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does by John Armstrong is a good book,  The railroad school that BNSF sponsers at Johnsoun County Comm. College (Kansas) uses this as a text.  I don't know any scanner freqs as I know the AAR channel numbers like 4242.  Signals vary from railroad to railroad, and even division to division,  In general, green means proceed at maximum safe track speed.  Red means stop.  Yellow means proceed past signal at a reduced speed prepared to stop short of the next signal, if indicated.  Other signal aspects common on the lines I ran were flashing yellow, flashing red, and lunar (a pale white).  I ran on UP lines which adopted the SP system mostly.  BNSF uses something similar, but has different names.  I never figured out the signals on the Belt Railway of Chicago going into clearing yard.  This may  be a good question for me task here!  The UP issues flash cards to trainees learning signals.  I understand them well enough.  Air brakes gave me issues, though.