Passengers aboard the Royal Canadian Pacific cruise train, which
began its 2001 operating season last week, can relax in the same
luxurious staterooms that once hosted British royalty and Winston
Churchill. Now, they can also access their e-mail and the Internet,
which could well be a first in passenger rail service.
The Royal Canadian Pacific, which operates summer-only excursion
trains through the Canadian Rockies, is the first passenger train
"to offer e-mail and Internet service in North America and possibly
the world," said Steve Barry, editor of Railfan & Railroad
magazine.
David Walker, managing director of the Royal Canadian Pacific, said
demand for e-mail and Internet access from passengers during the
train's inaugural season last year, pushed the company to retrofit
the 1920s-era cars with a mobile communications system.
Each passenger stateroom, as well as the train's lounge, contains a
standard telephone and modem jack, with ordinary twisted-pair
copper wiring connected through an onboard private branch exchange
(PBX), said Jim Provost, owner of Tele-Com Application Services.
Tele-Com did the wiring and phone and modem installation on the
train over a four-month period this winter.
The hardest part of the job was the between-car wiring runs, which
were subject to the stress of train movement, according to Provost.
"This was the real challenge," he said. "We had to allow some
flexibility so the wires would not break."
The PBX is linked to a wiring closet that contains six rack-mounted
cellular telephones, which are in turn connected to antennas
mounted on the roof of the rail car.
Don Wilkat, service manager at Caltronics Communications, which
supplied the wireless gear for the train, said each cell phone is
connected to a black box called a "tip and ring generator," which
emulates a standard wired phone connection.
"When you plug your laptop in, it thinks it's connected to a
landline," Wilkat said. Total cost per line for the gear was
nominal, he said, at roughly $300 (£209) for the phone and another
$300 for the phone emulator.
Passengers should experience connection speeds of 4.8 to 9.6Kbps,
Wilkat said, depending on the distance of the train from a cell
tower and the topography. While far slower than standard dial-up
speeds of 56Kbps, it will easily outperform recently introduced
Internet access services on airplanes, which are limited by
low-speed satellite links to 2.4Kbps.
Wilkat described the Royal Canadian Pacific wireless system as
simple technology, using older but proven 3W analog cell phones and
standard telephone wiring. "Yes, it's simple. But it's a good idea
to keep things simple," he said. "And it works." He added that
other rail carriers could easily and cheaply offer an equivalent
service, depending on the mobile phone coverage along their tracks.