Useful railfan frequencies for the following areas can be found by clicking on the link of interest below.  Click on the link of choice for a list of frequencies, used in the followling geographical areas:

*  Tehachapi Pass:  From Bakersfield to Mojave; BNSF and UP frequencies, since they share the road

*  Feather River Canyon:  These frequencies are used from Oroville to Reno Junction, on Union Pacific

*  BNSF's Needles Subdivision:  Frequencies covering the busy Mojave Desert mainline from Barstow to Needles

*  Donner Pass:  How could we forget this one?  Roseville, Colfax, Truckee, Reno; they're all included...

Back in the mid-1970's, when I first acquired a scanner capable of listening to railroad frequencies, the airwaves were alive with chatter, between the head end and the rear end (yes, they really used to use cabooses...) and the dispatcher.  Due to G.P.S., increased automation, fiber optics, mega-advances in technology, two-way radio communication via V.H.F. radio is used only a fraction as much as it was used 20 or so years ago.  Yet, most railfans will find it to their advantage to bring a scanner, as drag detectors, scanners and local switching operations still use scanners, and occasionally the head end will contact the dispatcher via radio.  

If you want to be "region specific," go ahead and program those frequencies into your scanner.  However, for the last year or so, I've taken a different approach, since I own 2 Realistic scanners, and each of them contain a whopping 300 memory channels.  I have one scanner that is programmed strickly for railfanning use.  As of this writing, written in January, 2006, all railroads in North America use any one of 92 channels, allocated strictly to railroad use, in the V.H.F. spectrum, with a frequency range of 159.180 MHz to 161.565 MHz.  Now, you ask, how do I have my railfan scanner programmed? Well, read the next paragraph.

If you have a scanner that has more than 92 channels, and you want your railfanning action anywhere in North America, simply program in all 92 channels, and you'll be good-to go.  Click on TrainWeb's link, and you'll find the list of all 96 channels.  Just program them in your scanner, and you're good-to-go anywhere in North America.

Due to the ongoing revolution in electronics, railfan scanning, as we know it today, is a dying subject, so enjoy it while it is still here!