Re: what kind of walkie-talkie/radio receiver recommended for trainspotting?

That depends on how much money you want to spend and if you plan to use the radio for other purposes. The C&TS uses two frequencies for its radio communication--161.505 mHz (AAR Channel 93) is the main road channel, with 160.305 mHz (AAR Channel 13) used as the channel to access the railroad's repeaters. Any scanner will receive those channels--however, many scanners lack the sensitivity and selectivity to receive weak signals. Since the C&TS relies a lot on hand held radios to access the repeaters, you may hear only one side of the conversation with a "weak" scanner. My personal "best-buy" for a hand-held radio for railfanning is the Yaesu/Vertex VX-150 or VX-170. Both are amateur band transceivers with extended receive that will receive the railroad VHF bands. They are essentially built on a commercial chassis, so they have good sensitivity and selectivity, as well as fairly loud audio output. They can be bought from several ham radio retailers--I use Ham Radio Outlet (www.hamradio.com) that has numerous stores all across the US. They are priced around $110-$150 most of the time.

All of that said, the C&TS does not use its radio system a whole lot--unless there are problems.