What to program my Baofeng radio to railfan the Northeast Corridor

[aegrotatio]

Soon I'll be travelling with my new Baofeng UV5R radio. It's a handy-talkie that covers all railroad frequencies. While I figure out a way to permanently lock out the Transmit and Call buttons, what frequencies should I program to enjoy the following lines? I've never programmed a HT scanner before. I'll be onboard on Amtrak while travelling and wayside for the others.

Northeast Corridor from WAS to POU.
Metro-North West of Hudson and NJT (PJ, Bergen, Main, and Pascack Valley).
Metro-North East of Hudson (Hudson/ex-Harlem).

I have a couple antennas of various gain and length tuned for 144 MHz and 430 MHz. The stock antenna is virtually a dummy load--should I bring it along in case the signals overwhelm the receiver?

Thanks in advance.

[DSchmitt]

This site may help you. 

 

http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_rrfreqs_newplan.html

[aegrotatio]

This radio is a very cheap 2m/70cm handy-talkie. I used a short and a long antenna and the longer antenna heard more signals. The radio "listens" to the "A" and "B" side simultaneously. So, I set the "A" side to the NEC "road" channel and the "B" side to the NEC "Catenary Power Desk / MOW" channel. The "road" channel changes a bit north of Philadelphia. I heard lots of interesting traffic on both channels.

In the future I will spend considerably more money on an actual 2m scanner. But, for the money, and prior knowledge of the frequencies, this rig was adequate to enjoy a few trips on the Northeast Corridor this summer and understand the unexpected slow parts of the trip. My return trip was unusually delayed for more than two different reasons which could only be known by listening to the conductors' walkie-talkie or listening with my own radio.

New Jersey Transit and subway monitoring, however, is not possible without a true scanner.