How do train watchers figure out train schedules—by experience, or is there a website that keeps track of where trains are?
I ask because I was driving home from a rather rural place, and I saw two teens just waiting by some railroad tracks in the distance. As I got closer, the gates came down and they whipped out their phones to record it. I saw them again once or twice staking out the tracks, but never got stopped again.
I’m curious if you have any insight into whether they got lucky, or if there was a resource they could have used to know roughly when a train would arrive
Freight schedules aren't public information. It's a combination of experience and radios. Some dedicated railfans will buy radio scanners so that they can hear about train movements. Passenger rail is much simpler; just find the schedule.
Most trainwatching is just luck or knowing which lines are busier than others.
Ah, that makes sense and is really cool; I knew people used CB radios to listen in on truckers, I hadn’t considered that it was also possible to do something similar for trains.
I don’t know much about trains, but I’m pretty confident this was freight rail, since there are very very few passenger rails near me—especially out in the country
How do train watchers figure out train schedules—by experience, or is there a website that keeps track of where trains are?
I ask because I was driving home from a rather rural place, and I saw two teens just waiting by some railroad tracks in the distance. As I got closer, the gates came down and they whipped out their phones to record it. I saw them again once or twice staking out the tracks, but never got stopped again.
I’m curious if you have any insight into whether they got lucky, or if there was a resource they could have used to know roughly when a train would arrive
Freight schedules aren't public information. It's a combination of experience and radios. Some dedicated railfans will buy radio scanners so that they can hear about train movements. Passenger rail is much simpler; just find the schedule.
Most trainwatching is just luck or knowing which lines are busier than others.
Ah, that makes sense and is really cool; I knew people used CB radios to listen in on truckers, I hadn’t considered that it was also possible to do something similar for trains.
I don’t know much about trains, but I’m pretty confident this was freight rail, since there are very very few passenger rails near me—especially out in the country