http://railroadradio.net/

https://www.radioreference.com/db/browse/

Figure out what railroad operates on the line near you and what division of the railroad that is, and that will take you to the correct frequency. If there isn't a live feed available online for the railroad near you, you will need to buy a radio scanner.

Buy a Baofeng and then just scan the AAR frequencies in your area(or look up what they use in your area on the FCC's website/foamer boards).

Detectors are not as interesting as you think.

>XXXX DETECTOR MILE: FOUR ZERO SEVEN POINT TWO
>SOUTH BOUND(faint sound of the horn in the background because they have microphones on these radios for some reason)!

After passing by
>NO DEFECTS!
>LENGTH OF TRAIN: FIVE SIX FOUR TWO
>SPEED: TWO THREE
>TOTAL AXLES: THREE THREE TWO
>TEMPERATURE: SEVEN SIX
>HAVE A SAFE DAY!
>DETECTOR OUT!
Ad nauseum
But I guess it might be helpful to know when a train is coming. You'll find it more interesting to listen to yard channels and dispatchers and might even hear someone like me call interchange jobs "incompetent" on the mainline.

Also the hot axle detection is usually set so ridiculously high that well tied hand brakes frequently don't trigger it.

>>5771
Boy that brings back memories of listening to hotbox detector MP19.6 on CP Rail's Laggan Subdivision west of Calgary, Alta in the mid-80s. It gave us an early warning that a train was inbound and time to walk from our homes (mine was near downtown yards) and get trackside for some pictures. Particularly useful if rare locomotives or special moves were passing through but we didn't know exactly when. It sure cut down standing for hours in -20 temps in wintertime.

Back then it didn't broadcast on radio, it had a big display board that would show how many axles from the rear a defect or hotbox was detected. "000" if nothing found. So as soon as the caboose passed it the crew would read out over the road channel "No Alarms". I think it turned into a talking hotbox detector by 1988 just prior to the loss of the caboose.

Scanners were an expensive instrument for us teenagers back then, even with p/t jobs. Buddy had an older 4 ch Radio Shack scanner that used crystals. He lived near MP8 which used to be the citys' western edge. He'd call a couple of us on the phone if he heard something interesting heading our way.

Once in a while we'd hear incorrect axle counts (odd numbers), or in later years one of the crew would echo back in the same robotic manner & tone as a joke.

>>5772
>Odd axle numbers
lol, we used to have one detector that ALWAYS did that.

That's really interesting about it being an electronic board for the caboose instead of just talking.

We have also have a few "derailment detectors" scattered around. They don't normally give any feed back and are slowly being phased out.

>>5773
Yeah in 1986 I used to live in the small town of Cochrane about 5 miles west of this particular detector. I've hiked to it many times to watch it in operation up close. At night you could walk down to the tracks in town and look east and see the board light up from 5 miles away.

I found a pic of what they looked like. I forgot there were 5 other indicators, 3 on top and 2 below the display. I've completely forgotten what each one means but I think one was a status indicator that the detector was functioning properly, and another indicated dragging equipment?? I know a retired railroader from that era, i'll ask him about that.

I do know that the digits will flash at a 1 Hz rate indicating a hotbox. I recall seeing it happen one night from my vantage point 5 miles to the west and noting that i'd never seen that before. During the weekend visit to the model train club I asked my buddy about that and he said he heard there was a hotbox and the train stopped. A few years later buddy hired on at CP Rail Calgary RTC, he's still with them.

Found a site with a few Canadian examples: https://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2009/10/hot-box-detectors.html

I swear someone made an HO scale model of one of these but using the segmented red LED's common back in the 80s.

>>5773
Ugh.. I should have read that webpage more thoroughly. It describes what each indicator light on the display board represented.

>>5775
>Read the blog
>See the throwaway line about the mayor of Mississauga
>Born in 1921
>Mayor from 1978-2014
>She's still alive!
Damn!