@Robin2 Problem being, like before, that not all railyards have a tower, let alone one equipped with interfaceable power and/or at a sufficient height and I'm not totally in to the idea of servicing a tower every time I install this at a new yard. The WiFi solution sounds promising though but I haven't had much success finding such a router. From what I've seen if you can get a module that reaches a quarter mile you'd be lucky.
@jremington Fortunately the radios used at yards I've visited are used to talk through trains all the time, but they are not the cheapest. Since these aren't trucker radios, I'm assuming they're analog, meaning only one conversation can be conveyed at once. That means they would have to purchase a new set of radios (effectively as far as cost price goes) for each set, and they are not cheap. My engineer buddy told me the workers are liable for up to $500 of it. I doubt one would cost that much but for as far as they are transceiving I'd believe anything under $300. It would be much easier if I could just buy the antenna and transceiving module in these radios but I don't think they're easily available because of FCC regulations (correct me if I'm wrong). I love the idea of using a modem, though. I actually never knew there was such a way to interface two-ways.