“I’m not a fan of the modern railway system. I strongly object to paying twenty-seven pounds fifty to walk the length and breadth of the train with a sausage in a plastic box.”  - Kitty

Over the past two years, i’ve spent A LOT of time zipping up and down the east coast of the UK on the train to meetings in either London or Slough. One thing that’s made it more bearable has been GNER (and more recently National Express East Coast’s) wifi service.

For those who haven’t experienced it, each carriage is fitted with an access point, which is in turn connected to an satellite modem and an array of GSM modems. All that connectivity is then aggregated together to offer a pretty much unbroken connection throughout the journey.

Back in the days before GNER lost the franchise it cost about £7.99 for 2 hours or £9.99 for 24 hours, which was just about justifiable if travelling on business and meant you could crack on with dealing with email and other work while on the move. You also got access free in first class, which made paying £25 for dinner in the restaurant car on the way home an even more attractive option.

Since the move over to National Express East Coast, they’ve made it free to all passengers, which while wonderfully egalitarian, has made the service considerably poorer. Now that everyone can get online for free, the speed has dropped like a stone and it seems a lot less reliable than it once was.  

However, in their favour, the support line are excellent. On a few occasions the system has gone down, a quick phone call and they’ve either remotely rebooted the server or otherwise solved the problem. They even call you straight back if you get cut off using the caller ID from your mobile phone.

However, the support line has never been particularly well publicised, so should you ever need it, here it is: 0845 1254455