Road/ Dispatcher Channels

I have seen where Road Channels and Dispatchers channels are different. I was just wondering for Example CSX in this area used to use one channel for road and one channel for dispatcher. I would hear the dispatcher talking one channel and I think the trains on another channel calling signals. Working for the railroad all our road/dispatcher channels were the same, so this concept is confusing to me.

But my guess is this if someone could confirm...

I don't know how you could be on a road channel and listen for the dispatch channel unless... you didn't use the typical channels such as 20/ 20 Is the first channel the receive and the 2nd the transmit or vise versa?

So you could be receiving on the Dispatch channel for example 20/ and transmitting on the road 21 so your channel on the radio would be put in as 2021?

The input at the local tower to the dispatcher is the road channel?

Hope someone understands and corrects me if I am wrong.

CSX here on most of the old C&O use AAR Channel 8, and 14 (160.230, 160.320) 8 being the road channel, and 14 being the dispatcher channel. If a crew needs to tone the dispatcher, they goto channel 14, and do their thing (it sometimes means a signal or two doesn't get called). Likewise, if the HF/HG dispatcher needs a certain crew, they'll use the closest tower to their location, and call for them on Channel 8. If there are any restriction orders, activation failures, etc to be given out, they'll tell the crew to follow them to channel 14, and get their EC-1 ready.

Loyd L.

they switched the dispatch frequencies on the B/O to (AAR 14) has been replaced with 160.980 (AAR 58). still using 160.230 (AAR 08) as the road channel. Also, for those that might be interested the B&O CPL’s are down and the new signals are is use. That was the information part of this post.

This information came from St. Louis Radio Info Yahoogroup.