VRE Trip Report

I rode the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) several times in the past couple of weeks, and was listening to the scanner all the way up and back. I traveled from Fredericksburg to Crystal City. The road channel (161.5500) was very active with location call-outs, defect reports, etc. The dispatcher channel (160.4100) was only active a few times, notably when the train I was riding had door problems. I didn't hear anything on the VRE channel (160.6800).

While it's easy to hear the rail frequencies from the train, listening to public safety is somewhat more difficult than listening on the trip up I-95 in a car. I assume because the VRE cars are made of heavy metal that the radio signals are somewhat attenuated. Nevertheless, the major 800 MHz public safety systems (Prince William, Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington) were able to be monitored for much of the trip.