INDIANA WEST CENTRAL

MONON, INDIANA (LAFAYETTE-DELPHI-RENSSELAER, INDIANA, KANKAKEE, IL) STEREO

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NS (former Wabash) between Logansport and Lafayette, Indiana 160.44 - B SIDE AUDIO

Dispatched in central time from Decatur, Illinois on AAR22. Towers include Lafayette, Clymers, and Logansport. West Peru is the crew base and division point between Ft. Wayne (Huntington District) and Decatur.  East of there trains switch to channel 18 on the Huntington. Ft. Wayne is on eastern time. NS also uses 22 in other parts of Indiana, especially on the Newcastle. We sometimes also have channel 46 plugged in which is what the Kankakee NS dispatcher uses to talk to coal trains (usually UP) going to the NIPSCO power plant.  CSX also uses 46 out of Indianapolis. There are three detectors that we commonly hear, but as typical of NS, they do not give train length, temperature, speed, or direction.  The detectors repeat themselves a second time.

Current Status 10-13-11: Stereo: UP Villa Grove dispatcher is on the A side audio with CSX 84, and NS channel 22 is on the B audio channel with CSX channel 12.  Use your L/R slider if you prefer to listen to one more side more than the other.  This might change from time to time, but right now 84 is priority on the A side and 12 is priority on the B side.

CSX (former Monon) between Lafayette and Rensselaer 161.37 - A SIDE AUDIO

Dispatched generally in eastern time from Calumet City (home of the fabulous Blues Brothers) on AAR 12.  CSX radio towers on the old Monon are located at St. John, Parr, Monon, Lafayette Yard and Lafayette Dispatcher, as well as Bainbridge and Hunters on the Lafayatte Sub.  The road channel is AAR84.  Channel 84 is also used as the yard tower frequency by Brewer Yard in Illinois and on the Garret subdivision across northern Indiana as the main dispatcher channel, so there is a lot of possibility of hearing their signals on occasion.  The Monon detector is on channel 84 and gives the axle count only.

IPADS- We are now enabled for you to listen on your ipad. The easiest way to navigate is to use the sitemap (mobile users) icon over to the right side of the page.  This will bring you up a list you can click on if you can't get the main page to work.

TIME ZONES - Northwest Indiana stays with Chicago all of the year.  The NS dispatches on Chicago time.  The actual time change boundary of the switch to Indy time is 6 miles west of Monon at the Jasper County line.

MAP - Click on www.4rr.com/44/map.jpgfor a coverage area map.  Areas you will hear vary considerably with weather coditions and the quality of the radios being used on a particular locomotive. Operator technique also has a great deal to do with what you can hear.  Sloppy procedure and crummy handsets often result in unintelligible transmissions.  Also some equipment is being converted to narrow band, which does not sound as loud.

QUIET RADIOS  Railroads have to make their first narrow banding cut by January 2013, and most are doing it now in late 2011 and early 2012.  Those that have been converted to narrow band will sound "quiet" on the average radio, and those that have been converted to narrow band, when a wide band signal is received, will sound loud and distorted.  Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done while the transition is underway, some radios will be loud, others will sound quiet.  The first cut is from 25 khz bandwidth to 12.5, and the audio deviation is also cut in half.  This is NOT a digital conversion, just cutting the analog signal in half.  Down the line, it will happen again, as the channel are futher subdivided, but we aren't worried about that yet.  Our radios are already programmed narrow band.  We are also ready for the new channels 117-196 when any assignments are made, but so far as we know, none have been yet in Indiana or eastern Illinois.  There may also be some coverage lapses when everyone goes narrow, and it is expected that most railroads will have to build new dispatcher remote towers and/or change antenna configurations to get the same coverages as in the past.  All we can do, as listeners, is grin and bear it, wait and see.

CONRAIL FREQUENCIES STILL DUPLICATED Until CSX and NS apply for, and are granted, new channels from the FCC, there is still a lot of duplication amongst frequencies, particularly 12, 46, and 84.  NS and CSX share some channels, such as 46, and within CSX, the dispatcher is on 84 on some lines, while on others that is the road channel.   Our Monon dispatcher now is RB for channel 12 on the Monon, and the mileposts beginut s with Q.  But we share the same road frequencies with other subdivisions, so sometimes we get stuff from farther away.  Near Danville, Illinois (the old C&EI), has a similar milepost 82-129 range but are  ZA.  The dispatcher channel there is 14.  The Garrett, where the road channel is 08 and the dispatcher is 84, is the old Baltimore and Ohio, and has mileposts BI 125-236.  So since there are so many parts of the old Conrail system using the same channels with similar milepost numbers, under the new ownership, there is some radio interference from time to time.  Rember BI is Garrett and Q is Monon!

AMTRAK CARDINAL AND HOOSIER We try to cover the Amtrak Hoosier / Cardinal between Rensselaer and Lafayette,  Indiana. The Cardinal runs three times a week with train numbers 50 or 51, with 51 being westbound (northbound).  The Hoosier runs on other days with train numbers 317 or 318 (851 or 850 in the Amtrak timetable). For more information click here www.4rr.com/44/hoosier.htm

It takes Amtrak roughly an hour to cross our territory.  The 92.8 detector usually goes off around 7:15 in the morning and 8:15 at night (central time), if Amtrak is on time. The 130.6 detector can be heard, south of Lafayette, when conditions are good.  The detectors at Battle Ground and Rensselaer seldom come in except as static bursts.  Detectors are very low power, and not intended to broadcast more than a mile or two.

• If you are in the area, check out the Monon museum and restaurant north of Monon.  www.mononconnection.com
• This historic Monon Railroad route until quite recently had 1917-style sepaphores on it.  It was originally chartered as the New Albany and Salem. On May 1, 1865 the Abraham Lincoln Funeral train passed trough here and is said to have stopped for coal and water at Reynolds.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE MILEPOSTS FOR THE CSX MONON SUBDIVISION. (BROOKSTON-CHALMERS-JUNCTION-MONON-SURREY BLOCKS, APPROXIMATELY MP 70-110.  Our coverage normally begins in the old Surrey Block and continues to around the old Industry Block. Road Channel 84, RB dispatcher channel 12 (formerly 14).  Mileposts are numbered southward from Dearborn Station in Chicago, although the Monon originally used terminal trackage of the C&WI (Chicago & Western Indiana) within the Chicago city limits (as did other lines using Dearborn Station). The C&WI here is now owned by Chicago METRA for commuter service. Note: In June 2011 CSX stopped using the block system on this railroad, resulting in a change of radio procedures.  Crew no longer calls the blocks or gives the times at the block signs.  We are keeping the information here for reference though.

• Hohman Crrossing - Hammond, Indiana, original trackage still remains but out of service, parallel to the existing NS (former Nickle Plate) 
• Stateline Crossing - Trackage removed - Originally paralleled the Nickle Plate and ran with the Erie to the C&WI
• Amtrak and CSX Monon sub freight traffic currently cross over to the CN (GTW) at Maynard (Munster).  Amtrak transfers over to the UP briefly at Thornton Junction and passes through the UP Dolton Yard prior to switching over to the NS (former Pennsy) for the balance of the trek into Chicago.
• 27.6 Dyer (Amtrak Code iDYE)
  29.0 Dyer Siding 2665'  (EJ&E crossing)
• 30.4 DTC BLOCK SIGN BETWEEN DYER AND LOWELL BLOCKS
  33.2 St. John (NS crossing)
• 36.8 Detector (axles and temperature)
  44.8 Lowell
• 45.5 DTC BLOCKS LOWELL (N) AND SURREY (S)
  52.6 Shelby (NS crossing)
  54.1 Thayer
  56.5 Rose Lawn 4095' Siding
  65.8 Parr
  68.1 Surrey (there is a 5415' siding here) SURREY (N) AND MONON (S) DTC BLOCKS
•        Airport Road
  73.1 Renssselaer (Amtrak Code REN)
• 75.7 Rensselaer Defect Detector (Not usually heard, but engineer will acknowledge on radio)
• 74.4 Iriquois River (Marion School Road)
  77.0 Pleasant Ridge (Pee Ridge)
• 80.8 McCoysburg
• TIME ZONE CHANGE BETWEEN CENTRAL AND EASTERN TIME
• 83.2 Lee
• 86.1   West Pass - N end of Long Siding, and BLOCK SIGN BETWEEN MONON AND JUNCTION BLOCKS
  88.4 Monon (junction block)
• 90.3 DTC BLOCK SIGN BETWEEN JUNCTION AND CHALMERS BLOCKS
• 92.8 MONON DEFECT DETECTOR - (axles only - engineers will acknowledge on the radio)
• 95.8 Reynolds (TP&W crossing) and former Monon Trailer Factory - Short Siding Located Here
  98.2 Smithson
  102.2 Chalmers DIVISION BETWEEN JUNCTION AND CHALMERS BLOCKS
• 105-106 BROOKSTON SIDING 5470'
  106.2 Brookston - Grain Industry Switching (Popcorn/Orvil Reddenbacher)
• 109.6
  110.2 Ash Grove
• 113.3 Battle Ground Detector (Not usually heard because itis in the Wabash River Valley)
  112.9 Battle Ground
  115.5 FARMERS CROSSING - DIVISION BETWEEN MONON AND LAFAYETTE SUBDIVISIONS
• 117.0 North End Lafayette Siding
• 118.1 Lafayette East Yard limits
  118.8 Lafayette Yard Sign
• 120.1 Lafayette Station - Purdue Campus (Amtrak Code is LAF)
• 120.7 Lafayette Junction - Interchange with KBS and NS- DIVISION BETWEEN YARD AND INDUSTRY BLOCK
• 124.0 BLOCK SIGN DIVIDING LINDEN AND INDUSTRY BLOCKS
• 130.6 South Raub detector (heard sometimes, about 8 air miles south of Lafayette depot)
• 136.9 DTC BLOCK SIGN BETWEEN AMES AND LINDEN BLOCKS
• 147.6 Last Monon Semaphore Blades at Crawfordsville (for reference)
• 150.5 Crawfordsville - Frequency changes to or from 30/46

HERE ARE SOME OF THE MILEPOSTS FOR NS LOGANSPORT TO DELPHI TO LAFAYETTE CHANNEL 22 This radio coverage is from the old Second District of the Wabash Railroad, which is now a main line of the Norfolk Southern (Illinois Division).  The milepost range we hear is between 225 and 250, Logansport to Lafayette outskirts.  The Wabash line from Kansas City to Detroit became part of the Norfolk Western in 1964 and eventually was merged with the Southern.  You will hear signal calling by the engineers, and  the detectorss at 225.5 , 236.7 and 250.3.  This is a relatively busy railroad.  Once and a while a detector is heard at 242.5 which is on the Frankfort line near Mulberry, Indiana.

• 202.5   Peru - Radio Base Station and Crew Change Point
• 204.5   West Peru
• 209.5   Detector - (Only rarely audible on stream) 
• 212.6   Sycamore - East End of Siding Track  (Formerly East Danes)
• 215.1   Danes - West End of Danes Siding Track
• 217.6   18th Street
• 218.5   City of Logansport
• 224.4   Penn - East End of 12,400 foot Clymers siding
• 224.3   Clymers - West end of siding and a location of a dispatcher radio base station - WSRY Crossing
• 225.5   Defect Detector - (Usually 100% on the Stream)
• 232.2   Town of Rockfield - East end of an 8400 foot siding
• 233.9   Yuill - West end of the siding (used to be West Rockfield)
•            Anderson Grain
• 236.7   Delphi Defect Detector (Usually 100% on the stream)
• 238-9   City of Delphi
• 241.4   CP Delphi - East end of Colburn Siding
• 244      Colburn - West end of a 12,400 foot siding
• 250      Buck Creek - East and West Bound Signal Towers
• 250.3   Buck Creet Detector (Audible on stream 33% of the time)
• 253.1   East Yard limits. East end double track to Lafayette Junction plus dispatcher base station
•            Royer - End of East Yard - Junction to Hill Track
•            Switch to Interchange Yard
• 255.69  Harrison Bridge
•            Main Street Pedestrian Bridge
•            Wabash Avenue
• 257.2   Lafayette Junction - Interchange with CSX and KBS- West End Double Track
•            Elston to SP Line
• 257.7    Demun - Junction Frankfort Branch
•            CSX Overpass
• In 2001, a project to consolidate and close 42 crossings was completed in downtown Lafayette.  As a result there is no longer street running in this city by either CSX or NS.  There is one block in front of the old Monon Depot where track was left in the street for historical purposes.
• 263.8    West Point - East End of  12,575' Siding
• 266.4    Fint - West End of Siding
• 274.2    Riverside (Formerly East Attica) - East End 11,708' Siding
• 276.6    Attica - West End of Siding
• 280.5    Williamsport - Radio Dispatcher Base Station
• 288.2    Marshfield - East end 14,890' siding
• 291.2    Johnsonville - West End of Siding
• 296.2    Eldan - East end of double track to Ryan
• 300.4    Danville Crossing - CSX Former C&EI to Brewer Yard
• 300.8    CSX Crossing (Formerly Conrail Crossing)
• 303.8    Tilton - Radio Dispatcher Base Station
• 313.3    West End of Double Track to Eldan
• 326.7    UP Crossing
• 338.0    Tolono, Illinois
• 375.6    Decatur, Illinois

BRANCHES: TPW RAIL AMERICA , CSX MONON INDIANAPOLIS BRANCH TO MONTICELL0, CSX MEDARYVILLE BRANCH NORTH OF MONON - There is sometimes some local rock and grain activity to Medaryville, but very little to Monticello. The farm service operation in Monticello gets two or three tank cars of agricultural chemicals in the spring.

OTHER RAILROADS - NS 46 from the Kankakee dispatcher  is used to talk to the coal trains going to the NIPSCO power plant (usually UP powered).  Their junctions often are alpha characters, such as MJ. CSX also uses 46 between Indianapolis and Crawfordsville and on the old NYC across northern Indiana.  

Sometimes we have the CN plugged in (The GTW is now CN desk 11), which can sometimes be heard on 28 and Desk 10 on channel 32. 

UP Channel 20 is used by the UP in the area of Momence-Watseka, which sometimes is heard when conditions are good.  In use on the Villa Grove is channel 65. The Texas Eagle detoured a lot that way, due to track work on the Alton line over the summer.  The Woodland is interesting because between Chicago and Woodland Junction (mp 86) it is a joint line formerly the Chicago and Eastern Illinois (C&EI).  In 1969 the Missouri Pacific was allowed to buy the western line to St. Louis on the condition of the L&N getting the eastern main line to Evansville.  MP and L&N shared the trackage from Woodland Junction into Chicago.  Still today, the joint trackage agreement is in effect with respect to UP and CSX, the successors of the MP and L&N.  It is a very busy railroad.

The Hoosierlift faciltity of the TP&W sometimes has activity on channel 86.  Otherwise TP&W is not known to talk much.

CSX Garrett:  CSX across northern Indiana has as many as 50 freight trains a day.  It, also, is very busy, and when skip comes in, many of the stray BI transmissions are from up north. 

CN changes coming.  As CN fully integrates its purchase of the EJ&E, there have been many changes, with more on the way.  Reportedly there will be a trackage right agreement in place soon that will allow CSX to operate over the CN, bypassing UP Dolton.  It is unknown at this time if Amtrak will use the routing, but it makes sense that they eventually will, bypassing some of the UP congestion in Chicago.

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMING SOMEDAY- While it may not be for a few years yet, the old Monon has been federally-designated as the high speed 100+ mph alignment between Washington DC, Cincinnati, and Chicago.  The line is going to go up through Francisville to Wanath, where it will join with the New York to Ft. Wayne and Chicago line for the connection to a regional hub in the Windy City. Can't wait...hour or so ride from Purdue campus to Chicago, 45 minutes to Indy, and three hours or less to Cincinnati!  Unfortunately, the political atmosphere in Indiana and Ohio is anti-rail, and has become even more so in 2010.  The two states will continue to lose population, jobs, and political clout until this anti-progress trend is ultimately reversed and forward-thinking leaders elected.

CAB RADIO ISSUES - Cab radios vary wildly in RF strength ad audio readability.  There is also a switch going on to narrower band radios, which have half the audio deviation of the older radios and probably do not sound as loud to the listener as before.  One of the biggest other issues is operator technique.  Some operators do not get close to the microphone (in some cabs you might have to stand up to do so), and sometimes there is horn or other noise in the background.   Where someone is standing with a handheld makes all the difference in the world.  An Amtrak conductor standing near the vestibule window with the handheld can be heard a lot farther than if he or she is sitting down inside the "office." 

OTHER RADIO STREAMS IN INDIANA. There are other railroad radio streams in Indiana that are on their own servers (not on RailroadRadio.net).  The best known one at Indianapolis is south of our coverage area, on the Indiana Railroad home page. Another way to find them is by doing a shoutcast search.  Our CSX freight and Amtrak trains depart that stream's coverage area at Clermont, on their way to Ames (Crawfordsville) and Lafayette.  South of Lafayette there is a CSX streamer on the Monon, it can be accessed on radioreference.com in Montgomery County, Indiana.  There may be at West Lafayette one on the Purdue campus, although we have not heard it lately.

CHICAGO: There are not any close-in Chicago railroad radio streams that we know of. There are some suburban areas covered on radioreference.com, and there are streams at Effingham and Galesburg that are interesting.  Please let us know if you are aware of any in downtown Chicago. We would very much like to help someone put one in for close-in Chicago coverage.  When weather conditions permit, we sometimes receive some Chicago stuff here.  All of the AAR channels are in use in our area, as well as in Chicago, but our coverage is spotty on many of them due to the distance from the transmitter sites.

TROPOSPHERIC ENHANCEMENT

Things sometimes go nuts on the VHF radio due to weather conditions.  Stuff that is nor normally heard on the radio may show up (DX in ham-speak). We get a lot of signals off of Lake Michigan, especially from southern Wisconsin and the stronger towers from Chicago.  For a discussion of tropospheric activity along the coast and over big water bodies, check out the links povided in the forum pages.  Temperature inversions and frontal systems can act as reflectors of radio waves.  Big bodies of water such as Lake Michigan or Lake Ponchartrain often create their own weather/radio environments.  Receiving sporadic Chicago area chatter is not uncommon due to the "lake effect," especially in early morning.  If you are interested in that sort of thing, as we are, I'm sure you will find the links and discussion of interest.  One of the links we have is to the tropospheric activity maps generated from amateur radio packet transmission paths.  This is relatively real-time, and shows the reception paths of various stations, which can routinely reach several hundred miles at this time of the year.  While much of this is at 144 mhz, which is below the rail radio band at 161 mhz, it is relevent, as when there is an event that affects 144, it often spreads to and from other frequencies as well. Here is a link for almost real time maps.

http://tiny.cc/tropo217