It’s here coming February 1st:
Click to Enlarge
H/T: Dan Carey.
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And since the Coast Starlight also has wifi, now the entire corridor is connected.
Do all the coaches used on 11 and 14 have outlets now?
Hmm, maybe it’s just the Parlour car. Can’t remember.
Outlets on coaches are dependent on whether they’ve recently been rebuilt or not, otherwise you’re just getting the plug-ins for the cleaning crew.
Wi-fi on #11 and #14 is in the Parlour Car only.
Although I can’t see why people want to be connected on that train, given the scenery it goes through.
Wi-fi… outlets??? Sorry, I’m old and don’t really get all this high tech stuff. I know coaches are metal and that makes RF transmission tough but geesh; as an techno idiot I can figure out how to install a repeater.
Just to be clear, I assumed Lloyd meant actual electrical plug-ins.
Keeps you from draining the laptop battery.
Wi-fi is wireless, but does require equipment on board the trains. I also don’t know the technical aspects of what is needed to have the whole trainset be wi-fi, as opposed to a single car (i.e. the Parlour Car on the C/S).
Time for the real techno-geeks to chime in.
“Although I can’t see why people want to be connected on that train, given the scenery it goes through.”
Clearly in order to tourist-blog. :-)
I’m actually genuinely curious how it’s done. You couldn’t just run ethernet and have a base station in each car as the SIDs would collide. You could have a fancy base station with multiple antenna ports and run low-loss coax to each car but that would be crazy expensive. A chain of wifi repeaters might work but seems like it wouldn’t perform very well.
“Although I can’t see why people want to be connected on that train, given the scenery it goes through.”
I guess some people are going from point A to point B, and aren’t just on an “excursion”.
The Parlour Car is the “Sightseer Lounge” car exclusively for the sleeping car passengers on the Coast Starlight.
Reason #42378 why it’s better to take Amtrak rather than drive
Most excellent news!
Great news. If we can just get more frequency, there would really be no reason to consider flying.
A year ago on the east coast I had free wifi aboard the MBTA commuter train, Hampton Jitney bus and Virgin America flight from Boston to San Francisco. Good to see wifi on public transportation becoming more widespread. Makes your travel go by real fast.
[...] Cascades Gets Universal Free WiFi. January 27, 2011 at 11:36 am. by Martin H. Duke. It’s here: Click to Enlarge. H/T: Dan Carey. « News Roundup: Deeply Flawed. 5 Responses to Cascades Gets Universal Free WiFi. Zach Shaner says: … Read more from the original source: Cascades Gets Universal Free WiFi – Seattle Transit Blog [...]
Hopefully it works better than Sounder’s wifi. I can never seem to get a very good connection on Sounder, probably because everyone else is trying. It works for email and stuff but not much else.
Are you in the two cars furthest from the locomotive? Those are usually the only ones with wifi coverage.
I look for the wifi symbol on the car.
All cars in the 4xx series have wifi. And one other series has it, I cant remember…
The 1xx, 3xx, and 4xx have WiFi.
I’ve never gotten more than two bars, and it cuts out all the time.
I end up using my Clear USB Wimax anyway…must faster and more stable.
Yes exactly.
I complained directly to Sound Transit about how unusable it is, and they replied that it was “an experiment”.
This is great news. I’ll be checking out reliability and bandwidth on my next trip.
I am unable to find anything about this on Amtrak’s own web sites. You sure this has been turned on?
If a potential passenger can’t find service information about landslide cancellations and snow delays on their site would you truly expect THIS information to be there?
Compared to ORCA they do an ok job, but…
Looks like it hasn’t been officially turned on.
Is this a STiBbi-leak?
You didn’t compromise your source, did you?
Some of us rely on this blog to keep us up to date, you know.
No, WSDOT sent out this email to subscribers.
The technology is apparently provided by Nomad Digital, a UK firm.
http://www.uknomad.com/press-nomad-wins-another-major-north-american-contract–details-63.html
I’m posting this en route from Portland-Seattle on the #500 Cascades. This confirms Wifi is indeed now available. Just look for the ID AmtrakConnectCascades in your available networks list, and open your browser.