I'm trying to find the scanner frequencies for the Norfolk Southern Washington District that NS, VRE, and Amtrak use. I've known about Radioreference.com.

If you look at http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=2484 and scroll down to the Norfolk Southern chart, I currently have frequencies 160.245 (Dispatcher), 160.635 (ARN-Manassas area), and 160.95 (Washington District Dispatcher/Road) programmed into it. However, I have had my scanner on all-day (litterally) listening to Fire Department Calls, and I still have not been able to pick up anything. I do get the occasional fuzz every few hours for about 5 seconds or so, but other than that, nothing.

This suprises me especially since it is a fairly busy line between Alexandria and points south. Is there another frequency I should put in to scan this line?

Thanks,

The info you seek may well be in the place you posted but you are not using the correct company list of the original pre CSX Or NS for example railroad. Many times a new railroad will continue to use original channels the line was authorized by the FCC before the new company took over or started to run them. In this way every company has a somewhat clear or quiet road channel to work off of.

If I travel to a location I review my FCC license record CD's sold on-line with all public fixed transmitter stations, listed by large areas. With this info you can locate railroad owned licensed towers still in use. Installers buy the disks in hope of avoiding interference from a nearby tower where the new install will be going up. And/Or I look along tracks for a Hot Box detector or pole mounted antenna and park nearby "band searching" the frequency's for action.

Try looking in older scan books or computer lists for the channels of the original companies. Or a timetable at a train show or on line store which lists all channels that are used to contact the dispatcher over a specific track.

In Ct we are lucky to have a few scanner and Ham radio stores that have older scanner books with the original radio channel lists available...
Good Luck..