Newsgroups: rec.railroad,rec.models.railroad,rec.answers,news.answers Subject: rec.railroad FAQ part 1--internet resources of RR interest Followup-To: rec.railroad Reply-To: mmitchell@asrr.arsusda.gov (Matthew Mitchell) Summary: list of internet resources for people w/railroad interest Archive-name: railroad/net-resources Last-Modified: 1994/06/08 Version: 1.0 Posting-Frequency: monthly Comments, suggestions, and additions gratefully accepted!!! send directly to Internet Railroad FAQ Part 1--Net Resources Compiled by Matthew Mitchell Version 1.0 of 08 Jun 94 Questions: Q1: Can I get Amtrak schedules on the internet? A1: Yes, see ##F Q2: Can I find out Amtrak fares or make reservations online? A2: Not yet. Q3: Can I get schedules for ? A3: Some US commuter schedules are on line, see ##F. A company in Switzerland sells the PC-compatible timetables of many European railways. See ##F Q4: Where can I get pictures of trains? A4: There are lots of FTP sites with GIF or JPEG images of trains. See ##C. Q5: What is the scanner frequency for ? A5: Download the file described in ##G. Q6: I have a question about trains. Where should I ask it? A6: Generally, try The Railroad List or rec.railroad. See the addresses in ##A. Q7: Can I control a model railroad with my computer? A7: See the rec.models.railroad FAQ, edited by David Haynes (david@sequent.com) available via gopher or from ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/rec/models/railroad Contents: (use the ## flags to find sections) ##A Mailing lists and newsgroups ##B Commercial On-Line Services and BBS Systems ##C File servers and archive sites ##D Gopher holes and WWW pages ##E Newsletters and other periodic postings ##F Train Schedules ##G Informational documents ##H Miscellaneous/Useful addresses Thanks to the following netpeople for their help! Wes Barris Yves Beaudoin Robert Bowdidge Brad Clark Dan Dawdy Rick DeMattia Markolf Gudjons Bob Harbison John Hawkinson Jonathan Kamens Leon Marr A Satish Pai Bob Scheurle Robert Walter ##A Mailing lists and newsgroups: The Railroad List (BITNET/internet mailing list) owner: Geert K. Marien to subscribe: send a message to no subject neccessary-the first line of the message should say "subscribe railroad yourname" You will get back a confirming message with information about using the list, including subscription options like getting messages as a daily digest instead of individually. to send a message to the list members: send it to typical traffic levels: 30-50 messages/day, 1600 K/month. for back issues: send a message to the listserv which says "get railroad log9401a" (substitute year, month, and week for the 9401a--a for the 1st-7th, b for 8th-15th, etc.) originated: index of other files on the listserv: send a message to the listserv which says "index railroad" for help: send a one line message "help" to the listserv BITNET addresses: list server: to send a message to the list members: owner: (BITNET/internet mailing list) to subscribe: send a message to no subject neccessary-the first line of the message should say "subscribe transit yourname" You will get back a confirming message with information about using the list, including subscription options like getting messages as a daily digest instead of individually. to send a message to the list: typical traffic levels: 10-20 messages/day, 800 K/month archives: send a message to the listserv which says "get transit log9401" (substitute year and month for the 9401) originated: for help: send a one line message "help" to the listserv BITNET addresses: list server: to send a message to the list members: Transportation Planning List (internet mailing list) to subscribe: send a message to saying "subscribe transp-l yourname" to send a message to the list members: archives: none that I can find originated: ?? typical traffic level: for help: send a "help" message to the listproc Railnet Railfan (internet mailing list) to subscribe: send a message to saying "join railnfan" to send a message to the list: archives: railnet file server send a message saying "get /public/rr/railnfan/v001n001" (substitute desired volume and number as needed) index: send "index" to the arc-serv originated: November 1993 typical traffic levels: sporadic--about one issue per week 5-20K per issue for help: send "help" to Railroadiana (internet mailing list) to subscribe: send a message to saying "join rrdiana" to send a message to the list: archives: railnet file server send a message saying "get /public/rr/rrdiana/v001n001" (substitute desired volume and number as needed) index: send "index" to the arc-serv originated: January 1994 typical traffic levels: sporadic--about one issue per week 2-10K per issue for help: send "help" to DOT List (internet mailing list) for state and local transportation officials owner: Donald Stone all messages and commends are sent to the same address unlike most list servers, commands should be included in the _subject_ line of your message! to subscribe: send a message with subject "subscribe" please include your name, position, and agency worked for in the body of your subscribe message to send a message to the list: archives: none yet originated: March 1994 typical traffic levels: for help: send a message with subject "help" Indian Railways mailing list "IRFCA": Forum for discussing all aspects of trains in India. A moderate traffic group, with between 10 and 30 messages a day. To subscribe: irfca-subscribe@onelist.com Home page: http://irfca.org Digest & web access available; archives and FAQ available. Rhaetische Bahn Fans List (Swiss Alpine railroad) for information or to join, mail to Marcel.Marchon@iwi.unisg.ch Other Mailing Lists: The Airline List , Urban Issues , USENET newsgroups rec.railroad covers all rail issues including Europe and rail transit typical traffic: 50 messages/day archives: none, but try searching gopher for last few days' posts. If you don't have a newsfeed, you can often read news through gopher: if the first gopher hole you try doesn't have a link to usenet, try another. You can post to it by regular mail to or another mail-to-news gateway. there is no news-to-mail gateway: gating rec.railroad to the railroad list was discussed in 1993, but did not get enough support to warrant the gateway rec.models.railroad a model railroad newsgroup maintains an excellent FAQ the FAQ is available by FTP to rtfm.mit.edu, directory pub/usenet/rec.models.railroad Other Usenet Groups alt.planning.urban sci.engr.civil ##B Commercial On-line Services TrainNET (CompuServe) very active section, including subinterest message boards for rail employees, postings of railroad newsletters, a model RR section, and much more. An excellent review is found in Rail Online, V1 #7 Travel by Rail: (GEnie) part of the TRAVEL RoundTable each GEnie RoundTable includes a file library, bulletin board, and chat sections with scheduled conferences. Category leader: Harry Sutton Sysop: Modeling RT: (GEnie) includes prototype railroading too! director: Bob Harbison weekly conferences alternating model and prototype subjects 300 files, including programs, images, and text files. for Genie sign-up, service and pricing information, call (voice) 1-800-638-9636 America Online: can anyone supply information???? Amtrak schedules available on the Mac Business Forum Delphi: can anyone supply information???? Rail-Oriented BBS Systems (only those internet-accessible) Railnet BBS files available: general information, text files in directory /public/rr/ Amtrak long-distance schedules in /public/rr/amtrak/ gifs of trains, etc in directory /public/rr/img/ archives of the railnfan list in /public/rr/railnfan/ archives of the rrdiana list in /public/rr/rrdiana/ for index of files: send a message saying "index" as the message body to to get a file: send a message to the arc-serv including "get /full/path/filename.ext" you can make multiple file requests in a single message for help: send a message saying "help" to the same address dial-up: 216-786-0476 ftp is not available: this is not a direct-connected site therefore, internet users should try to limit use of this server to files not available elsewhere BLE Express Network BBS Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (labor union) sysop: Tom Fetherston: for index of files: send a message saying "get index.txt" as the message body to for help: send a message to NOTE: some services restricted to BLE members only-- for BLE member registration information contact the sysop. dial-up: FTA Transit Safety BBS Federal Transit Administration sysop: Alison Thompson (202-494-2108), FTA Office of Safety TTS3, 400 Seventh St. SW, Washington 20590 includes regulations on rail and bus mass transit safety, accident reports dial-up 800-231-2061 (USA only, 2400-8-N-1) ##C File Servers and Archive Sites for Railroad Files Railroad Listserv to get a file, send a message to including the text "GET filename RAILROAD" for an index, send "INDEX RAILROAD" wuarchive The best-known internet rail archive: set up primarily for graphics files, it has become a repository for other files includes gifs and other images ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/trains gopher://wuarchive.wustl.edu/Graphic Programs/Trains Becaause gopher doesn't keep the connection open while waiting for input, it's better for both you and the net if you use it note that it takes a while for files to be transferred to the download directories: therefore, always search directory graphics/trains/incoming for the file you want owner-steam section: Yves Beaudoin finger his account for recent files added to the steam directory or see his "Virtual Railroad" WWW page ftp://uceng.uc.edu/pub/wuarchive/graphics/trains wuarchive mirror ftp://ftp.math.niu.edu, directory pub/WUARCHIVE/graphics/trains wuarchive mirror ftp://plaza.aarnet.edu.au (alias: archie.au), directory graphics/trains wuarchive mirror ftp://csg.lbl.gov, directory pub/nmra NMRA Digital Command Control SIG standards and documents owner John Balogh ftp://dsys.ncsl.nist.gov, directory pub/dwhite info about the National Railroad Historical Society and and some of its chapters, plus other rail info The following sites don't have quite so many files, are far away from a lot of people, and the links (and my notes) are not so reliable. If you have a World Wide Web browser, you'll find it faster and more convenient to reach these sites from one of the good WWW pages. ftp://hipp.etsu.edu/pub/railroad (Texas) owner Bob Wier ftp://ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/incoming/train-sounds Sound files (Portland State Univ., Oregon) ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/pictures/vehicles/trains (Finland) ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/vehicles/trains (Sweden) same files as ftp.funet.fi ftp://giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/trains (Australia) ftp://nctuccca.edu.tw/images/gif/machines/trains (Taiwan) ftp://jupiter.lfbs.rwth-aachen.de/pub/.rec/graphics/pix/trains (Germany) ftp://ftp.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/rec/images/train (Germany) ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/media/visual/collections/ icdoc-visuals/transport (England) ftp://photo1.si.edu/images/gif89a/tech-history Smithsonian Institution, Washington ftp://plains.uwyo.edu/bigboy (Wyoming) drawings of UP 4002 ftp://ftp.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/rec/images/train ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk, directory media/visual/collections/icdoc-visuals/transport Railroad Fonts (PostScript for Macintosh) created by Benjamin Coifman passenger and freight trains! FTP to sumex-aim.stanford.edu (or one of its many mirrors) directory font/ps/railroad.hqx ##D Gopher holes: Federal Register-Fed. RR Admin. gopher::gopher.internet.com provided by The Internet Company: a private company which charges for full access to the Register. However, the first some number of bytes of each item is available free to the public. Sponsored Programs-Fed. RR Admin. host solar.rtd.utk.edu path 1/research/Sponsored/src/KNOXVILLE/6/FEDERAL RAIL... Maryland Railroad Safety Inspection host seymour.md.gov path1/MDInfo/Agencies/Licensing...DLR/Div...Labor.../Rail... WorldWide Web The following pages make good jumping-off points for surfing the web. Most of them are linked to each other, and are changing and growing all the time! http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/bowdidge/railroad/rail-home.html Maintained by Robert Bowdidge http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~ybeaudoi/Virtual_Railroad/home.html The "Virtual Railroad" Maintained by Yves Beaudoin http://spanky.osc.cuny.edu/railroad/railroad.html Maintained by Robert Chambers http://www.arc.umn.edu/~wes/steam.html Steam locomotive WWW project, maintained by Wes Barris http://nyx.cs.du.edu/~rnovak/railonline.html Rail Online archives, maintained by Robert Novak http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/rml Train gifs and sound files, maintained by Robert Malick http://www.commerce.digital.com/palo-alto/CalTrain CalTrain San Francisco-San Jose-Gilroy schedules Users with advanced WWW browsers can search for specific stns. http://sleeper.apana.org.au/railway.home.html Desolation Road Railfan BBS and Dialup Unix sysop: Matthew Grier ##E Rail Periodicals Distributed Online: Railroads: These are all in-house employee newsletters which are forwarded to the CompuServe TrainNet forum, and then to rec.railroad and the Railroad List. They include news about operations and traffic, safety information, etc. Dan Dawdy is usually the person to thank for these being forwarded to the internet. Conrail Newswire Santa Fe News Bulletin Southern Pacific News Rail Online: a monthly rail newsmagazine includes original articles on prototype and model railroading, and clips from other on-line sources available as ASCII text and in "Replica" format (which includes graphics) editor: Peter Kirn posted to rec.railroad, TrainNet on CompuServe, RailNet BBS America Online, and wuarchive. back issues on: ftp::wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/trains/text The Delaware Valley Rail Passenger: monthly newsletter of the Delaware Valley Association of Railroad Passengers, an independent rail passenger organization serving Philadelphia and surrounding areas in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. newsletter includes local commuter rail and mass transit news, analysis of regional and national issues, a calendar of events, and bits from the rest of the world. published by DVARP, PO Box 7505, Philadelphia, PA 19101 editor: archives: official archive is send a message saying "get dvarp 9201 railnews" (substitute year and month for the 9201) also found on Railnet BBS and server ftp::wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/trains/text ftp::hipp.etsu.edu/pub/trains/dvarp Fidonet: address 1:250/730, file dvrp9401.lzh index: produced annually, available from same sources ProRail Nebraska Newsletter published by ProRail Nebraska posted to rec.railroad and the Railroad List editor: Dan Lutz archives: none yet index: none yet Iowa Rail News Published by Iowa Association of Railroad Passengers posted to rec.railroad and the Railroad List editor: George F. Davison, Jr archives: none yet index: none yet On the (Bi)Level Rider newsletter of Metra (Chicago commuter rail) occasionally posted to CompuServe, The Railroad List, etc. Underground News from London and other UK cities input and posted to the transit list by Clive D.W. Feather roughly monthly archives: none yet index: none The News From Here a (usually) daily posting of rail news from around the USA including grade Xing collisions (Continuous Carnage Dept.) and freight derailments (Freight Follies Dept.) which end up affecting trains operated by Amtrak, special trains, the business aspects of railroading, and much more. Posted to rec.railroad and the Railroad List Courtesy of Al Tuner For archives, see the Railroad List archives. Where They Are: a daily feature of the Railroad List. Al Tuner and Gordon Webster track a representative selection of locomotives and freight cars by computer, allowing list readers to see how widely they travel and how efficiently they move. Other readers compile occasional reports summarizing monthly travel. For archives, see the Railroad List archives. UTU News: labor union newsletter from United Transportation Union posted to Railnet BBS, with announcement on rec.railroad posted by John H. Horvath RailPage: Events for rail enthusiasts in Australia Posted monthly to rec.railroad, mail subscriptions available ftp::giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au Maintained by David Bromage Send listings to David Bromage Brass Key "unofficial internet newspaper" of Pacific Northwest Chapter, NRHS, posted to rec.railroad by Glenn Laubaugh Press releases from American Public Transportation Association posted to the PR Online BBS and forwarded to the Transit List Rail Scene (information lost in drayage) ##F Train Schedules: Amtrak Amtrak schedules have finally made it onto the net! A complete package of the schedules is available by FTP ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/info/nms/amtrak_schedules... This is a binhexed file in Macintosh format, download as text Also on many sites that mirror the info-mac archives ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/trains/text/amsched.hqx (Mac) ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/trains/text/amsched.taz (unix) The latter is tarred and compressed, download as binary IBM format is not available due to filename restrictions Download and unpack the file, and you will get a nested set of directories and text files. The directory and file names are set up so you can drop the whole thing into a gopher server or other public information system and have a menu-driven interface. This package was just released, so a complete list of gophers with the schedules is not available yet. Use Veronica to search for Amtrak. WWW Access: http://spanky.osc.cuny.edu/railroad/railroad.html Commuter Rail Schedules SEPTA (Philadelphia area) on the PennInfo system (University of Pennsylvania) telnet to gopher to and select PennInfo then search for keyword SEPTA or navigate to student services/transportation and parking/SEPTA a SEPTA schematic map of rail lines (GIF) is also available several other Phila.-area colleges have pointers to this http::www-penninfo.upenn.edu/962/penninfo-srv.upenn.edu/9000/13542 Caltrain (San Francisco-San Jose-Gilroy) ftp://netcom.com/pub/hatunen http://www.commerce.digital.com/palo-alto/CalTrain Shore Line East (New Haven-Old Saybrook, CT) gopher://gopher.yale.edu MARC (Washington DC to Maryland suburbs and Baltimore) gopher://inform.umd.edu, then search for "train" Limited Service: You may find selected commuter rail and transit information on local gopher or campus information servers. It's best to just guess, and check schools in the area you need information for. List subject to change and being out of date! Brown Univ.: MBTA Providence-Boston, Amtrak BOS-WAS gopher.brown.edu, 1/local/transportation Rutgers Univ.: NJT New Brunswick to Newark, NYC info.rutgers.edu, university/transportation/trains Princeton Univ.: NJT Princeton, PJC to Newark, NYC gopher.princeton.edu Northwestern Univ.: Metra Evanston to Chicago nuinfo.nwu.edu, 1/entertainment/transportation/ Yale Univ.: Metro-North New Haven to NYC European Schedules on the Internet Schedules for Finland VR are on a host in Finland [need the address!] [I think I also remember Polish schedules on-line too] European Railway Schedules on Floppy Disk currently available for Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic require IBM-compatible PC, price SFR 30-50 write for catalog to: Timetable Library, im Hauptbahnhof, Bu:ro 224, PO Box 322, CH-9001 St. Gallen, SWITZERLAND tel. Switzerland 071-22-61-80, fax 071-85-81-51 printed timetable books for most European railways also available ##G Informational Documents: Steam List maintained by Wes Barris 612-626-8090 updated quarterly archived on posted to rec.railroad E/F/BL List archived on maintained by Locomotive Rosters (What kind of locomotive is CSX 9149?) archived on Railnet BBS List of Rail Historical Societies archived on as "histsoc txt" Transit FAQ files FAQ files for public transit systems in various cities have been posted to the Transit listserv. While there is no official archive for these files, Robert Walter has copies of all of them and has offered to send them to those who request. Thanks, Robert! Cities for which files have been created (and creators) Los Angeles Moncton, NB Melbourne Montreal Ottawa * Colin Leech, right? Philadelphia * Matt Mitchell Pittsburgh * Derrick Bradshear San Francisco Dave Williams (entire Bay Area) Seattle Toronto Vancouver ARP List list of rail passenger organizations, with addresses and phones maintained by Matthew Mitchell posted quarterly to rec.railroad, archived on Railnet BBS archived on Signal Indications ASCII list of signal indications and what they mean occasionally posted to the railroad list by Dave Pierson a list of Canadian indications is also maintained on wuarchive by Brian Bukowski Radio Frequencies several lists, not all complete, are found on Railnet Conrail TrailVan Symbols intermodal train routes maintained by Bill Stephens Sig Spotters Guide A compendium of all the ASCII-scale locomotives, freight and passenger cars, cabin cars, trolleys, and M/W equipment in interchange service on the internet! Compiled by John Robinson helped by Bill Gripp Posted every April 1 to rec.railroad Commuter Rail Fare Chart ASCII table of fare vs. distance for most NA commuter RRs maintained by Matthew Mitchell posted quarterly to rec.railroad, archived on Railnet BBS archived on Directory of Transportation Data Sources "a comprehensive inventory of 285 computer data bases and statistical reports available within the US DOT and other Federal agencies." Available in hard copy or on floppy To obtain a copy contact Patricia Harrington of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center phone 617-494-2450, fax 617-494-3633 ##H Miscellaneous/Addresses to know: Metro Directions provides directions between stations and to points of interest on big city subway systems including NYC, Paris. telnet to metro.jussieu.fr (port 10000) instructions in English and French available, menu-driven Cities covered: Montreal, Toronto, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Toulouse, Frankfurt, Munich, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Madrid, London, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Washington This magnificent project was done by Pierre David and Janick Tallandier The best way you can express your appreciation (besides sending Pierre a nice bottle of wine or something B^)) would be to send a hardcopy map of your area subway/metro system. His address is Laboratoire PRISM, Universite de Versailles/St. Quentin, 45 ave. des Etats-Unis, 78035 Versailles Cedex, FRANCE Geographic Name Server telnet to martini.eecs.umich.edu (port 3000) then type the name of a city, zip code, or geographic feature to get a reply of other geographic information about it Passenger Train Journal: <73607.1175@compuserve.com> New Electric Railway Journal: <70550.1775@compuserve.com> Garden Railways: c/o Bruce Bates Rail and Transit (Canada): Pat Scrimgeour <73112.1037@compuserve.com> Branchline (Canada): David Strems Railpace (Canada Dept.): Bryce Lee Several other columnists have e-mail addresses: please see the hardcopy magazine. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Tom Fetherston: King County Metro (Seattle) ###END###