ATCS Monitor software

Milepost 99

It was a few weeks ago that I was over in Deshler at one of my favorite train watching spots... I had been there for a couple of hours and a few other railfans had come & gone.  In the distance, a couple of us heard a train whistle and got all excited about some traffic approaching from the west.  "Nah," said a guy there who had taken a quick look at his laptop screen, "that's on the NS going through Leipsic."

Huh?  How did he know that? Well, I sauntered over to where his laptop was plugged in and saw a graphic representation of the railroads in the area of Deshler and Leipsic.  Sure enough, there was a green line running through Leipsic complete with green signals and all.  Well, one thing led to another and before I left there that evening, I had the web address of the ATCS Monitoring group.  And I've been hooked ever since.

Take this from a complete novice; after all, I've had this up and running only a few weeks as I said.  But here's what I know... the railroads must use radio signals to indicate signal aspects, switch positions and track occupancy.  This information is picked up by regional radio antennae and then forwarded to the dispatcher's display where he/she can see the progress of the trains as they move across the rail system.

But these same signals are being picked up by amateur Ham radio operators, translated, then in some cases, fed to some Internet web servers.  This data in turn can be picked up by anyone with the proper software and then displayed on a graphic presentation on their personal computer.

While I realize that it is hard to see, the screen shot displays pictured here show both Fostoria on the top and Deshler on the bottom.  If one pieces the two together, they can pretty much monitor trains on the CSX main line from the Indiana state line to Attica.  Switches, crossings, sidings & interchange tracks are all displayed and after a bit of studying, you can pretty much figure out what is going on along the whole stretch of track.

Not all railroads use ATCS so there are a lot of areas that simply aren't available.  And even the areas that are under ATCS may not all be covered by an Internet server.  Keep in mind that this is not the railroads putting this information on the Internet; it is a group of hard working HAM radio enthusiasts who have invested their time and money to make this happen.

The ATCS group has a Yahoo Group where the software to monitor the system is available for free.  You do need to request membership but I had no problems being accepted.  I simply told them that I was interested in railroading, railfanning and rail photography.  I was accepted within one day.

Should you decide to look into this more closely, you can do a search on Google for ATCS monitoring.  That should get you started.  You'll need some modest computer skills to set up the software, but it is pretty simple and there are some good instructions & tutorials available on the Yahoo group.  Take my advice & read them.

As I mentioned, not all areas using ATCS are available on the Internet.  There are quite a few areas where you can capture the signal yourself on a railroad scanner (it takes a special frequency and some modifications to your radio) then use the software to display the translated signals on a laptop.  But the gentleman I met that night at Deshler was simply using his laptop with a wi-fi card.

While it's not quite as exciting as being there in person, when it's cold, windy & raining outside, it's kind of nice to be able to sit in the comfort of your living room and "watch" the trains as they go along the right of way.

Until next time...

dlm

Comments

[Ben Planck]

Thank you dlm for passing this information to us. I have joined the ATCS Group and will soon l/d some software. I never dreamed that I could play arm chair train dispatcher at home. The only bad this is, it like working for no pay.

[Ben Planck]

In looking at the top board displayed here, I noticed DA Tower. When you see a westbound lined up for the south NS track, the train is headed for Findlay. You have 15 minutes from the time it goes by DA before it will be in town.