Amtrak Wi-Fi (WiFi) Availability

HBLR wrote:What is the status of deployment as of today january 25 2011?

The Cascades service reportedly had a soft roll-out of WiFi yesterday for all trains with a formal announcement to be made soon. In news articles in early January about the ridership increase in the California services, it was stated, if I recall correctly that WiFi would be turned on for the CA service trains in the next several months.

No recent news on the NE Regionals that I have seen, but my guess would be sooner rather than later. Ridership numbers for the Regionals are flat and free WiFi would help.

I'm on a NorthEast regional right now, heading south. I'm connected to the internet via my iPhone (2G) which is painfully slow. I see a wifi network with good signal called "AmtrakConnect" but it's password protected. Does anyone know the password? I tried to google it but all results lead back to amtrak's website, which I can't get to load properly over this slow connection. Heeelp!

It's a WPA2 Personal password... whatever it is . . .

I don't think there is a password that you can use for access. What the WiFi signal means is that the Amfleet car - most likely the entire consist has been wired for WiFi - but WiFi has not made available yet to Northeast Regionals. I saw a Amtrak Connect WiFi signal on the Vermonter earlier this month, but it was password protected. Amtrak is upgrading all the Amfleet 1s with WiFi, but is presumably waiting until all or most of the cars have been upgraded before turning off the password and making the WiFi available. You could ask the crew in case there is a password they are willing to provide, but I doubt they know what the password is - or even if a password would work.

What this does mean is that we could be getting close to having free WiFi turned on the NE Regionals and the other trains that use all Amfleet 1 cars. Just not today. Sorry.

l008com wrote:It's a WPA2 Personal password... whatever it is . . .

I *think* that's the connection for the debit/credit card reader in the Cafe car. I saw this on my last two regionals. 66 and 93.

If anyone knows the password and wants to PM it to me, I can keep a secret

l008com wrote:If anyone knows the password and wants to PM it to me, I can keep a secret

It's hexadecimal so D00FG0DA or the reverse.

The Cafe Car in your train is one of the recent ones to leave DC shops with the wifi installed. it has nothing to do with the credit card reader. The wifi is password protected because it is still undergoing testing and is not for public consumption. Nobody in the train crew will have this password. At the moment only the Cafe cars will be wired for this, and possibly business class cars. The wifi will NOT be a trainlined feature and will only be available in equipt cars.

AM, the way the train crews understand it, that wifi will be available on the entire train once this project is completed. Attached are 2 photos of the receivers on the roof of cafe car.

I saw that on my train coming back from New Haven as well, but I figured it was an antenna for the credit card reader.

gprimr1 wrote:I saw that on my train coming back from New Haven as well, but I figured it was an antenna for the credit card reader.

An antenna that big isnt for credit card readers LOL. The credit card reader is totally self contained. There is no wiring in the cars anywhere for thous readers to connect nor is there any circuitry in the car for them to do any kind of transmitting. It all happens locally in the reader. Being an electrician whos worked on the cars I can assure you this.

ApproachMedium wrote:

gprimr1 wrote:I saw that on my train coming back from New Haven as well, but I figured it was an antenna for the credit card reader.

An antenna that big isnt for credit card readers LOL. The credit card reader is totally self contained. There is no wiring in the cars anywhere for thous readers to connect nor is there any circuitry in the car for them to do any kind of transmitting. It all happens locally in the reader. Being an electrician whos worked on the cars I can assure you this.

I didn't know if the metal car shell interfered with the unit. I know that sometimes it seems my air card doesn't get as good reception on board so I thought maybe it was overkill.

Alot of the air cards dont have real external antennas so they dont pick up as well. Dispite what the cell phone company tells you phones might actually work a little better with external antennas, and yes I have digital phones with antennas that can prove this. Your aircard probably also requires some kind of 3G/4G connection to say it has a signal and go anywhere. The little credit card thing can work off a basic 1x/EVDo or other slow data network. It just does authentication of credit purchases, not steaming netflix.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion. I was on a Regional from New Haven to Boston a few days ago, and was so confused when my laptop kept trying to connect me to it!

I have found on the Downeaster that the regular connection (Downeaster1,etc) has really been less powerful since the amtrackconnect started to appear. Train crew did know know anything a out it.