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National Express plans to take over the rail route from GNER in mid-December after fending off competition for the franchise from Arriva, FirstGroup, Stagecoach and Virgin Trains.GNER completed the approximately $6.5 million installation of Wi-Fi broadband connectivity on all 41 of its east coast trains last year, and although the service has been free for first-class passengers, those in standard (coach) are charged either $5.96 per half hour or $20.11 for a full day's use.
But in addition to faster journey times, National Express has also promised to extend free Wi-Fi to passengers in standard class as part of its seven-year contract. The on-board Wi-Fi uses a combination of a satellite link and mobile 3G/GPRS networks to maintain 100 percent connectivity, even when going through tunnels.
British Rail Passengers to get Free Wi-Fi [news.com.com]
Something for free on the railways. I guess it'll help while waiting on a delayed train.
Something for free on the railways. I guess it'll help while waiting on a delayed train.
If they offer it at the stations, it might make train travel bearable again. So when you're turfed off before the train reaches its destination because it's running late and has to turn back, you can continue working uninterrupted while waiting for the next train to come along.
(Every time I've travelled on the UK system in the past few years - utside of the SE region - I have an overwhelming urge to leak a piece of secret information to the railway operators which is privy only to foreign train companies: you can reduce overcrowding on board trains by, err, attaching more coaches to them).
you can reduce overcrowding on board trains by, err, attaching more coaches to them
Careful - I think that's covered by the Official Secrets Act.
And it's an open secret that the government prefers to keep thousands of 'surplus' carriages rotting on Ministry of defence rail yards, rather than risk National Express adding free wifi to them ;)
I don't know about anyone else but as a wi-fi user who uses it extensively with devices that don't have browsers (radios, wi-fi phones, etc.) I am getting sick to the back teeth of both free and paid wi-fi which is inaccessible by devices which support the published standard authentication methods (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.).
"Ministry of defence rail yards" - hmm, sounds like fertile ground for a conspiracy theory...
It does, but weirdly, there's photographs of them published regularly.
Not the ones in Area 51, obviously. ;)
you can reduce overcrowding on board trains by, err, attaching more coaches to them
Unfortunatley it doesn't quite work like that. When a longer train stops at a station, people at the carriages at the back have a long drop out of the door to the ground. Some of these people even get upset by it!
Some trains here do not stop at certain stations (they go straight through) because of the train versus station length problem.
[edited by: PCInk at 9:14 am (utc) on Aug. 16, 2007]
Also, you don't get WiFi on the major stations because they are managed by another entity, Network Rail, and they have trouble enough keeping things moving. The best possibility would be the stations run by some of the network operating companies. ;)
The current situation is NoFi, so any improvement is good, imho. :)
I'm sorry to put a dampener on the secret of adding more cars to the train: The stations need lengthening otherwise passengers just fall off the train onto the tracks. ;)
Ah, that's the second part of the secret.
Anyway, I think Japan should be given reponsibility for training anyone in the UK (and many other parts of the world) railway industries in the art of running a railway.
I think Japan should be given reponsibility for training anyone in the UK (and many other parts of the world) railway industries in the art of running a railway
Japan should be given responsibility for training anyone in the UK
Well, 50% of the consortium to run the London Overground from November is the company that runs the Hong Kong Metro - AND the Mayor has already agreed to finance more trains AND longer trains.
Dunno where they stand on wifi - but with the average journey at 10 minutes (and standing), I doubt that's so much of a worry!
I think it will be worthwhile on a journey such as that.
When thay said Scotland, I'd guess that'll be to Glasgow.
I presume it will also be Scotland-to-London ;)
