Canadian Railroads > CN trackside radio towers

Do the trackside radio towers handle radio traffic or does CN use mountain transmitters?

Mike Root
Madras, OR

The towers are used for communication between the RTC and trains; also MOW crews.  You'll often hear a crew asking the RTC to try a different tower because they're not getting a good signal...

Keith Robertson
Langley, BC

Hello, 

I happen to know a llittle bit about this,  as I was on the original survey that took place
between Edmonton and Vancouver in 1959.   This was the start of wayside radio on CN.
They put radios on westward trains at Edmonton,  and removed them on Eastward trains
when they went through Edmonton.

As to your original question   You actually do not want too much coverage,  as this saturates
the spectrum with trains far and wide.  You only want coverage on individual sections.
I can remember that we started with a site on Pyramid mountain at Jasper.  My God,  it 
covered so far,  it was chaos.  So that didn't last long.

Hope that helps a bit.

                 Sid