Train and Boat Schedules?

**mikeg19** · February-12-14, 01:51 PM

Does anybody know of any schedules that are published online that show train or freighter traffic? I live near Selfridge and have a rail line running close enough to see the trains through the fields. It'd be interesting to see what exactly is going by and when.

**professorscott** · February-12-14, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by mikeg19

Does anybody know of any schedules that are published online that show train or freighter traffic? I live near Selfridge and have a rail line running close enough to see the trains through the fields. It'd be interesting to see what exactly is going by and when.

For freighters go to the boat nerd website, it's either boatnerd.com or .org. Trains, I can't tell you. Have fun surfing!

**Király** · February-12-14, 02:55 PM

That boatnerd site is awesome! Check out the real time ship tracking map at http://ais.boatnerd.com

**Hermod** · February-12-14, 05:35 PM

For trains, you can find the radio band used by CN/GTW for talk between trains and the dispatcher. That is the line running from Detroit to Port Huron. The engineers report passage of "stations" though the stations are gone.

**downtownguy** · February-12-14, 09:54 PM

If you've got an Android phone, you can get an app called Scanner Radio. In addition to police, fire, and all that stuff, you can subscribe to a feed provided by boatnerd that is tuned in to the marine band for the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair.

**Hermod** · February-13-14, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by downtownguy

If you've got an Android phone, you can get an app called Scanner Radio. In addition to police, fire, and all that stuff, you can subscribe to a feed provided by boatnerd that is tuned in to the marine band for the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair.

The trains report on scanner radio as well. Each line [[CSX, NS, CN) has their own frequency. The engineer reports with his train number and the "reporting station" he has just passed. As a "fer instance", 23 Mile Road on the CN is/used to be "Chesterfield".

**Sandhouse** · February-13-14, 08:48 AM

Freight trains are scheduled only loosely. A particular freight train may be "scheduled" to leave a terminal at a certain time, but there will be a lot of slop around the actual departure time, and if there is insufficient freight to fill out the train, it may be annulled or combined with another train. Or anything. And once the train is on the road, snything can happen to the schedule. However, certain trains may obey very rigid schedules, such as for refrigerated produce, auto parts, or package-express trailers.

If you live near a railroad, you will eventually notice that similar-looking trains show up at roughly the same time every day. When I lived along the GTW Detroit - Port Huron line near Mt. Clemens in the 1960's, the local showed up every afternoon. Maybe it still does.

There used to be more scheduling. The fast freight trains of the Grand Trunk Western between Detroit and Chicago were famous in the 1940s and 50s for being as precisely scheduled as passenger trains, and nearly as fast. They had train numbers in the 400 and 390 series, as if they were passenger trains, but I suspect this practice is long gone.

**Hermod** · February-13-14, 08:55 AM

Canadian National/Illinois Central Michigan District [[CN/IC) Formerly Grand Trunk Western [[GTW)
160.440	22		Police
160.470	24		Police [[Detroit Area)
160.530	28	Ch. 2	Dispatcher
160.590	32	Ch. 1	Road
160.680	38		Yard
160.740	42		Yard
160.845	49	Ch. 3	Yard
160.905	53		Special Agents
160.920	54		Road [[ex-DT&S)
160.950	56	Ch. 4	MofW
160.980	58		PBX
161.010	60		PBX
161.040	62		Yard
161.220	74		Dispatcher for Flint Sub [[TD3) Road [[ex-DT&I)
161.280	78		Police

**douglasm** · February-13-14, 05:57 PM

For those who don't have scanners....or live in areas away from the rail lines, are there web sites that rebroadcast railroad radio signals? Out here, you can track BNSF radio on a couple of websites.