Railroads are still using analog for almost all of their voice communications.

Chances are that there is something wrong with your scanner, assuming it is progerammed correctly.

Scanners have something called "alignment" -- which is a sort of manual tuning that is normally preset by the manufacturer.

Over time, scanners can get out of alignment, particularly if there is a lot of vibration and impact stress.

Sadly, there are now fewer and fewer repair shops capable of checking and adjusting the alignment. And, it's quite possible that having someone work on your scanner may cost you almost as much as a new scanner.

For further discussion of scanners, you may want to visit or join the Yahoo railscan group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/railscan

Last year when I had problems with a more recent programmable hand-held scanner and needed to go on a rail trip (Operation Lifesaver special), I grabbed a 20-year-old scanner with crystals. (I still had a large selection of crystals.) I plugged in the appropriate crystals -- and the reception was just fine.

-- Ernest

(Railroad columnist for Monitoring Times, a magazine for shortwave and scanner enthusiasts: http://www.monitoringtimes.com/ My column appears every third issue (quarterly), alternating with other columnists covering aviation and ship frequencies. My next column will be in the March issue. As most of the techie stuff gets covered elsewhere in the magazine, I focus mostly on the railroad aspects of using scanners.)