I know quite a few people who like to make use of the commute to finish off any last-minute things so that when they get home they can put their work bag in a corner and properly switch off, rather than having to cook dinner, freshen up and then get back down to the grind in the late evening.
All of that is a red herring. Windows, air conditioning and suspension can only be provided by the railway, it would be impracticable to run passenger trains without windows or suspension, and passengers could hardly bring their own. Wi-fi and power provision on the other hand is not related to the ability of passengers to travel, and if the passenger needed (or just wanted) either, both can easily be taken on board. Much of the discussion has been about difficulties in mobile communication in some areas. That is an issue for the network provider to deal with as it is paid for by their subscribers, and nothing to do with the railway or the fare that the passenger pays to travel. Similarly, mobile devices (including laptops) have batteries to operate anywhere. If the nominal time that they operate on those batteries isn't long enough, then either change the device to one with a longer battery capacity, or modify usage to fit what you have acquired. The same goes for hair straighteners etc., get up earlier, - the train is not an extension of your house. [/QUOTE]
If it was a toss up between watching some trashy US tv programme that is punctuated with "and I was like" in every other sentence or looking out of the window, I'd opt for the window at least I'd be seeing reality even if some council estate yobos have shot the train at least I'd have some information to pass on to PC plod over what they were dressed in e.g. IRA style mask on a stolen e-bike, holding a rifle. Where as someone stuck watching an extended GIF on the spyware thing called Tick Tock would be completely oblivious unless the wifi failed onboard.
.Nothing to the extent of the VT fleet when delivered. I have however noticed that there are more blackspots when on a 197s than on a 150 (when on a line already with plenty of blackspots).
You could even bring your own seat cushions I suppose. Solid plastic seats would certainly be cheaper to buy and would simply wipe clean. I didn't see how highly passengers ranked "a comfortable seat" in the list of 25.
We are in a age of highly subsidised quasi nationalised National Rail Contracts nothing is up to the TOCs anymore.
Happens all the time for safety critical applications by the time the new technology has been proven, accepted and standards written it is now out of date. ETCS has to grapple with moving on from GSM and CBTC from 802.11 WIFI (or even worse earlier proprietary radios)Many thanks both. Good to know the railway uses a system that virtually dates back to semaphores and telegraphs. I wouldn’t expect anything less.
If you listen to certain voices here you'll get the impression that WiFi is horribly passé and something we should have left in the 2010s with ITSO cards and Facebook Messenger games.
Because the passenger survey shows that WIFI isn't important to passengers and potentially the money saved, it appears some of the earlier implementations need ripping out and replacing, could be spent on things, including accessibility that passengers deem more important. All 158s came with a payphone people aren't demanding their reintroduction technology moves on.
Really? I think that is about right
No it didn't. It said that it was less important than a number of other things (stuff like merely turning up at the advertised time). You can't extrapolate from that and conclude that it isn't important at all.
And as we all know you can get a survey to output any response you want. You just need to phrase the question the right way.
Yes you are quite correct I probably forget to include the word as or less in my statement. Of course if you do look at the survey the actual question was about reliability of the internet which is a valid question whether the connection is provided over onboard WIFI or by mobile data.
The problems with existing on board Wi-if discussed here fall mainly into to main categories:
Good to know the railway uses a system that virtually dates back to semaphores and telegraphs. I wouldn’t expect anything less
From a hardware point of view it certainly is minimal difference. On our stock (196/350/323/172) it equates to 1 Access Point and 1 router with multiple SIM cards. Yes the router is likely a specialised one rather than an off the shelf model, but it's needed for the staff requirements anyway. The cost difference in a standard and a high user AP is marginal.
What hyperbole! Unless you are talking about the deep tube lines or class 22x stock, I doubt that there is a journey of any significant distance that attracts business travellers wheere they cannot "communicate" at all. Plus if it is actual business work that a connection is required for, that is an expense that the business should pay (and get tax relief as a genuine business expense). If it is a 'business person' just browsing through some 'visual entertainment' (including tractors), then it is effectively leisure purposes.
I wonder how many of those here who feel that Wi-fi is essential to them every time that they are travelling on a train and it is a birthright, would pay for it at a fair commercial rate, - or is this dire need for it only there because somebody else is paying so that it is free to them?
