Brunel\u2019s elegant stations, deep cuttings and (literally) groundbreaking tunnels play havoc with our enjoyment of Martin Roberts\u2019 on-screen disagreement with a developer about the prospects for a flat in Northampton. The challenging terrain also prevents many people from being able to do any meaningful work involving the outside world.<\/p>\n
The deeper you get into southwest England, the worse the wifi<\/a>. \u201cIf you can’t improve the journey time, it’s all about improving the time on the journey,\u201d says Nigel Blackler, lead officer for Peninsula Transport.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s about better wifi connectivity both for business users and for leisure travellers.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is why one Great Western Railway<\/a> (GWR) intercity express, unit 802101, has been kitted out with technology pioneered by Formula 1<\/a> racing \u2013 to become Britain\u2019s best-connected train.<\/p>\n One GWR train has been kitted out with the F1 technology (Getty Images \/ iStockPhoto)<\/p>\n Why is wifi on trains so bad?<\/p>\n Regular rail travellers on intercity trains find wifi is usually a serious disappointment. Staying connected with the outside world is tricky and frustrating, with many people simply crossing their fingers and relying on their mobile phone hotspots \u2013 which all too often turn into \u201cnotspots\u201d.<\/p>\n Steel rail carriages have something of a \u201cFaraday effect\u201d that reduces the penetration of phone signals. The typical passenger might set their sights no higher than trying to send a few emails and do some basic social media stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cOn most trains, I think people usually give up,\u201d says Nick Fry \u2013 chairman of the communications company Motion Applied. \u201cYou try to use your mobile phone as best you can, but the connectivity is often so poor you don\u2019t bother \u2013 you\u2019re better off having a nap.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet allowing passengers to be connected while on the move is crucial for the railways. To attract new business, the rail industry needs to show travellers they can make the most of their time on board.<\/p>\n Boosting people\u2019s productivity is the \u2018next best thing\u2019 to improving journey time (Getty Images \/ iStockPhoto)<\/p>\n Boosting people\u2019s productivity is the next best thing. \u201cIf you can’t improve the journey time, it’s all about improving the time on the journey,\u201d says Nigel Blackler, lead officer for Peninsula Transport. \u201cThat\u2019s about better wifi connectivity both for business users and for leisure travellers.\u201d<\/p>\n Andy Jasper, chief executive of the Eden Project<\/a> near St Austell in Cornwall says: \u201cI\u2019m often in London, along with a lot of my team. We are forever traveling up and down, and this becomes my office, it becomes my boardroom, it becomes my team’s meeting room, and actually if the wifi is working, it’s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n How does the tech work?<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re taking Formula One technology and applying it to wifi on trains,\u201d says Nick Fry.<\/p>\n You might imagine top F1 driver Lando Norris and the average passenger on the 1.33pm from Newbury to London Paddington share little in common.<\/p>\n But the Motion Applied boss says: \u201cThere are some formidable challenges with both. In Formula 1, the car is going around a circuit at very high speed. On Grand Prix Sundays there are hundreds of thousands of spectators, plus media and cameras, so the airwaves are crowded. That makes communication difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cTrains are actually quite similar: they move quickly, go through cuttings, pass under trees, and carry lots of people.\u201d<\/p>\n The train seeks out the best connectivity at any one moment from a combination of Starlink satellites and 5G phone masts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fundamentally different from a normal train wifi system,\u201d says Nick Fry. \u201cOn this train there are four pizza-sized boxes on the roof. Each contains antennas and a computer that works out where the best signal is. The boxes talk to each other and, unlike most systems, can connect to either a satellite or a ground station \u2013 sometimes both at once. They analyse the signal millisecond by millisecond to give you the best possible performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Game changer? F1 car at London Paddington ahead of the launch of a pilot programme for high-speed wifi (Simon Calder)<\/p>\n \u201cOn this train, most people will be able to go about their day-to-day business\u2014talking to family, doing Teams calls, watching a movie. It\u2019s genuinely transformative, and productivity will increase significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it free?<\/p>\n Yes. As with hotels, airports and many similar locations, the public expectation is that wifi is free \u2013\u00a0and so it is.<\/p>\n How good is the wifi?<\/p>\n Besides watching daytime TV, I also pretended to do some actual work. Connecting to the weekly travel planning meeting with my colleagues at The Independent was simple; the audio occasionally drifted off in the direction of Mars, but that may be our system issue.<\/p>\n Download rates typically measures around 70 megabits per second while travelling at 125mph. That\u2019s the sort of speed (70MB\/s, not 125mph) that you\u2019d expect to achieve at home, and is not bad for an office.<\/p>\n Upload speeds are slower. While on the move, a 230MB video interview with Nick Fry took about 45 seconds to upload to a transfer site.<\/p>\n With the railways at present, the best connectivity you will get is at a Network rail station. I am writing at Paddington station, where a check just now revealed a download speed below 15MB\/s.<\/p>\n Between Newbury and Reading, the system logged me off, but allowed me back on within a few moments. The pilot will identify any glitches \u2013 and also assess how much passengers use the system.<\/p>\n Paddington station has a download speed below 15MB\/s (Getty Images \/ iStockPhoto)<\/p>\n When can I try the new GWR wifi?<\/p>\n The nine-coach train, Unit 802101, will be serving all the Great Western intercity routes between now and January.<\/p>\n Mark Hopwood, managing director of GWR, says: \u201cI completely understand people wanting it immediately, but we still have work to do to understand how it performs, especially with large numbers of users.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re running the trial\u00a0\u2013 we want to properly learn from it. If the results are good and we conclude the pilot successfully, then we can look at rolling it out. \u201c<\/p>\n If the pilot proves successful, the next step will be for the government to put in tens of millions of pounds to connect, initially, all the Intercity Express Trains across the country, and later commuter services too.<\/p>\n Which train operator does wifi well, and who badly, in your experience?<\/p>\n LNER<\/a> on the East Coast main line between Edinburgh and London is the outright winner \u2013 though you have to upgrade to first class for the best results. Greater Anglia also delivers good results.<\/p>\n Those that I don\u2019t like include Govia Thameslink, which throttles back the wifi after you\u2019ve used a fairly modest amount.<\/p>\n![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b36b88d58b1cc05495f07b82e5eb42e9.jpeg\"\/)
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