CSX NS Road and Dispatch

US > Indiana > Tippecanoe (County)

Listen	Feed	Genre	Listeners	Player Selection	Links	Status
	CSX NS Road and Dispatch Carroll, Tippecanoe, White Counties Railroad dispatchers and occasional road talk right channel. Law Dispatch may be on left channel during weather events.	Rail	1	HTML5 Web Player Static URL ($$) Advanced Web Player ($$)		Online

Feed Notes

AAR 12 CSX Monon Subdivision RB Dispatcher Jacksonville

AAR 50 NS Lafayette Distric Dispatch / Road Detectors MP 225.5 (Clymers),  236.7 (Delphi),  250.3 (East Yard), 260.7 (Shadeland)

AAR 84 CSX Road Defect Detectors MP 92.8 (Between Reynolds and Monon), 113.3 (Battleground - weak), 130.6 (South Raub - weak)

AAR 22/39 NS Frankfort Branch/ Frankfort District Road/Dispatch - Defect Detector 242.5 (Mulberry - occasional)

Note that both the CSX (former Monon) and NS (former Wabash) cross time zones here. NS changes between eastern and central time at the Illinois state line, while CSX changes at the Jasper County/White County, Indiana line just west of the town of Monon. There are two regional roads that are seldom heard: KBS and TP&W. The latter interchanges with CSC at Reynolds.

There is a VR camera at Lafayette which favors the CSX main line at around milepost 119. If the cam operator zooms under Salem Street bridge (MP119.4) and it is not blocked by parked cars, Amtrak's 3 times a week Cardinal can be seen passing the camera and making the Lafayette downtown station stop in the distance (milepost 120.1).

Amtrak times are mornings Monday, Thrsday, Saturday northbound (PO51), and evenings on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday southbound (PO50). The Cardinal utilizes part of the Monon subdivision between Munster (MP25.7) at the north end, and Crawfordsville(MP148.2) on the south end. It makes station stops at Dyer, Rensselaer, Lafayette, and Crawfordsville (Elmore). At Crawfordsville (Elmore) on the south end, the Amtrak line switches to the Crawfordsville branch for the treck to and from Indianapolis and other points.

Amtrak still makes non-revenue equipment moves between Chicago and Beech Grove on trains 50/51. Usually when additional locomotive equipment is in the consist, the conductor will be in an Ivy City originating locomotive. The axle count will also be higher than the normal 28 when extra equipment is moving.

This radio feed tends to pick up regional dispatcher towers and Lafayette yardmasters, but not always crew shuttle vans and usually none of the handhelds. What is heard depends a great deal on various factors: techqnique of the operator, condition of the locomotive radio/antenna set up, terrain, other radio traffic, and of course weather conditions. The most common intelligability issue is with operators failing to speak clearly into their handsets in what is typically a noisy environment. The next most common reason is a degraded radio/antenna system on the locomotive.

Our mileposts of possible CSX coverage north to south are between Rensselaer (72.3), Lafayette (120.1) and Crawfordsville (Elmore 148.3). Usually RB dispatcher is heard from fixed towers, with mobile traffic quite variable for the above-listed reasons. From time to time, Lafayette yard channels 08, 72, etc. may also be added to the scan at non-Amtrak times. NS coverage varies, but normally is between 204.5 (West Peru), 256.8 (Lafayette Junction) and around 276.6 (Attica).

As side notes, channel 84 is also in use across other portions of Indiana, especially on CSX Garrett. If skip conditions are in effect, there will be stray signals coming in from up north. Technically, mileposts on CSX Monon are prefized by a Q, while on the Garrett they are prefixed with BI. Dispatcher ID's and mileposts given are also different even if the radio frequency is the same (Garrett is RM while Monon is RB).