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NORTHERN SUBURBS OF LAFAYETTE, INDIANA, SOUTH OF CHICAGO
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LAFAYETTE - DELPHI - LOGANSPORT RECEIVER
LAFAYETTE INDIANA AREA - AMTRAK CARDINAL
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This site rebroadcasts land mobile rail channels off the air in the vicinity of Lafayette, Indiana. A Kenwood radio is encoded by a raspberry pi that feeds either through the Starlink constellation or a ground-based DSL copper pair, whichever works. Fibre optic has bypassed us in the land that time forgot. All legacy channels 7-97 are in use in the Chicago region. A digital repeater is now on channel 97 (seldom used and has CW identification), but most signals are still analog.
A time zone boundary between eastern and central time runs through the coverage area.
Do not let it mess you up!
AMTRAK CARDINAL PASSENGER TRAIN 51 IS NORTHBOUND ON CSX IN THE MORNING MONDAY THURSDAY AND SATURDAY. SOUTHBOUND TRAIN 50 RUNS EVENINGS ON TUESDAY THURSDAY AND SATURDAY.
IN 2023 THE PATTERN CONTINUES FOR 51 TO BRING EXTRA EQUIPMENT FROM BEECH GROVE SHOP NORTHBOUND TO CHICAGO ON MONDAY MORNING, AND TO ATTACH SOUTHBOUND ON SATURDAY NIGHT. THERE CAN BE TUE/THUR MOVES, AND AN OCCASIONAL SPECIAL TRAIN FOLLOWING CLOSE BEHIND #50 AS WELL.
YOU CAN TELL WHETHER THERE IS EXTRA EQUIPMENT BY LISTENING TO THE AXLE COUNT DETECTOR. THE BASIC TRAIN 50/51 IS 24 AXLES NORMALLY.
NORFOLK SOUTHERN
NS 50 Lafayette District Road and Decatur Dispatcher (former Wabash)
Coverage area is on the main line Lafayette-Dayton-Delphi-Logansport. Two talking detectors on the main line in the vicinity of Delphi normally they only announce "no defects."
At West Peru, the Huntington District Dispatcher takes over on channel 18 (923).
At Frankfort, the Frankfort Branch changes over to the old main channel, 22.
There is a good bit of switching activity in the Lafayette area, both on the north side, and down by Subaru on the south end connecting to Dayton and Frankfort yard. We usually omit the switching channels 8 39 49 72 and 76.
CSX MONON SUBDIVISION
LAFAYETTE, MONON, RENSSELAER
Channel 84 is the CSX road channel. This is still the route of the Amtrak Cardinal passenger train. Dispatcher channel is 12.
The Magnetation facility at Reynolds is defunct. It only operated for a year or two, after CSX put in extensive improvents. The circular storage trackage is visible from outer space, and could easily accomodate a grain processing facility. The ethanol facility east of Rensselaer is still active.
There are low power talking defect detectors at Pleasant Ridge and Battle Ground that are seldom heard, and an axle count defect detector between Reynolds and Monon that is reliably heard.
PTC went active on the Monon Subdivision in October 2018. There is still a yard office in Lafayette that talks to crews. There is a yard office in Monon that sometimes is staffed, and a switcher is still maintained there.
Effective January 18, 2018 the Elkhart & Western Railroad acquired the Monticello Branch, between Monon and Monticello. There is one customer remaining on that line.
The spur from Monon to Francisville continues to be CSX-owned and maintained. CSX has two small storage yards at Monon, often spotting grain cars.
TP&W interchanges with CSX at Reynolds, usually with trains from the west, and from time to time may talk to the CSX dispatcher in order to get permission to move between Reynolds and Lafayette. From time to time there may also be TP&W switching at Reynolds or elsewhere on channel 86. To the east of Reynolds there is very little activity, usually only one local run per week, typically on Tuesdays.
MORE RAILROAD INFORMATION ON THE NEXT PAGE
OTHER CHANNELS HEARD FROM TIME TO TIME
All of the original AAR channels are in use in this region. A good resource is the CARMA website (Chicago Area Radio Monitoring Association).
More distant channels may be added or subtracted from the scan from time to time, or may be heard depending on weather or radio tropo "skip" conditions. if it is an Amtrak day, we often turn off the scan and monitor only CSX road channel 84.
NS crew activities in Lafayette sometimes take place on channels 8 39 49 76 and others. Most of the activity around Subaru and between Dayton and Frankfort is now on channel 39. Employees may also use random unlicensed channels for private conversations. Quite a bit of switching also takes place on road channels.
If you are in the Monon area, check out the
Monon museum and whistle stop restaurant
north of Monon. Call ahead for their hours.
http://www.mononconnection.com
THE AMTRAK CARDINAL
Hoosier State was discontinued July 1, 2019.
Cardinal (51) runs northbound on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Train 50 runs southbound on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Most trains between Rensselaer and Lafayette will be heard on CSX if the engineer is calling the signals. There is a detector at 92.8 between Monon and Reynolds that announces axle count. For Amtrak, 24 axles is the normal count for the Cardinal. If the axle count is more than 24, there is extra equipment, normally coming from or going to Beech Grove (Amtrak's heavy shop facility).
TROPOSPHERIC ENHANCEMENT
Things sometimes go nuts on the VHF radio due to weather conditions. We get a lot of signals off of temperature inversions (skip) caused by Lake Michigan, and when low pressure frontal systems move through the midwest. Tropospheric and sporadic-e transmissions may also be heard from time to time.
Here is a link for a nearly real-time propagation map. No longer works with all browsers.