Bote's Railfan Pages

A Random Collection of Stuff of Interest to Railfans

With an emphasis on the D.C. and Baltimore areas where I grew up and south Florida where I now reside.

Amtrak and Passenger Stuff

Book — Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service--A Year Spent Riding across America (Paperback). James McCommons sets out to rectify American ignorance of passenger trains by describing his rail travels around the United States in 2008. He writes of the people he meets, the scenery, the long decline in American rail travel, and its emerging renaissance, interweaving discussions he has had with dozens of the leading minds on American passenger rail. McCommons explains that Amtrak has been starved for funding since its 1971 inception but argues that a brighter future is coming with increased funding from the Obama administration, states working on regional plans, a new spirit of cooperation from the freight railroads, and the 2008 four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline price, which refocused the public’s attention on rail travel. Still, he’s objective, and though repetitious, his narratives get the mood of train travel right. He’s at his best when deftly connecting the lack of a salad in a dining car with bigger issues like Amtrak’s funding.
VERDICT: Essential reading for rail fans, policy makers, and anyone curious about the future of transportation. Read more.

Amtrak Funding article

Allen Sloan, Newsweek's Wall Street editor, expounds on airlines making all their profits from government bailouts, while Amtrak must grovel for the mere scraps left over.

Tri-Rail

South Florida's commuter railroad.

Photos

All Aboard Days at the B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. (before the roof caved in)

Caboose photos - for the benefit of Roger Kirkpatrick

Family archives - pre-historic stuff from my father's collection

Folkston, Georgia, U.S.A. - Rail Watch video festival 2003

Tennessee Wildflower Special - railfan excursion over ex-Tennessee Central trackage (now Nashville & Eastern) from Nashville to Cookeville, TN with E8A power; 10 May, 2003

Sounds

Sounds page - Reference to sounds, F.E.C., and CSX sounds

Florida East Coast Railway

F.E.C. Fort Lauderdale Train Watching Sites: Descriptions, directions, and maps to good train watching sites in and around Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A.
F.E.C. #253 Steam Locomotive Association: the group hoping to restore F.E.C. steam engine #253 in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Train Chasing Guides

Sand Patch maps — DeLorme Street Atlas maps of the Sand Patch area of the CSX Keystone subdivision, Pennsylvania

National Capital Train Chasing Guide — covering only CSX (and partially at that) around the lesser D.C. area with three lousy maps

Jeff Hawkins' Virginia Railfan Guides as printable PDFs for NS, CSX railroads

Frograil — Tony Hill's site with extensive guided tours of many popular rail lines, mainly in the eastern half of the United States.

Waycross, Georgia — Brief description and links to maps of Waycross for train watching possibilities

South Florida Guide — covering CSX and a little F.E.C. action in Broward and Palm Beach counties

Reference

AAR channel/frequency table: Railroad frequencies and channels cross-referenced in a compact table.
CSX dispatcher code table: my page cross-referencing CSX dispatcher codes to areas covered and AAR channel numbers used; check it for accuracy in your area and report back to me, please. The host site where this was intended to be displayed, CSX Timetables, has been taken down due to the legal sabre-rattling by CSX; national security and so forth, dontchaknow. Sheeeeee.
F.R.A. Interactive Rail Map: works best (only?) with MS Internet Explorer; shows main, branch, and abandoned rail lines, mileposts, station names, lots of detail; sluggish and intermittent, but worth the wait
International Container Code Registrar: Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal (B.I.C.)
North American Shortlines: Google docs spreadsheet of shortline railroads in the U.S. and its neighbors
Rail Signal Tutorial: Long, detailed tutorial on how railroad signals work. Uses frames so you won't see a menu until you mangle the uri to go to their home page.
Railroad Glossary: Railroad lingo from Railroad Avenue, by Freeman H. Hubbard, 1945
Reporting Marks (PWRC): database of railroad reporting marks by the Peidmont & Western RR Club
Links to other railfan sites: my page of links to other sites of interest to railfans
Restricted: Private collection.

Miscellaneous Pages

Jump to Bote's Roadgeek Pages: road signs, highway neatness.
Jump to Bote's Radio Pages: ancient two-way radio information; frequency lists.
Jump to my PartialCOX page: Private collection: JCC Archives, personal tour guides; this has no reason to be over there any more, I'm just too lazy to move it here.

Return to Bote's Web Nexus home page