On Apr 2, 11:28*am, Owain wrote:

Many do, including some surprisingly small unstaffed ones. Many
railway stations now also have CCTV and help point speakerphones to
contact the CCTV operator for assistance or to obtain train times.
CCTV operators can also make announcements to unstaffed stations over
'long line public address' in the event of service disruption or to
challenge vandals etc.


I've been told it's cheaper to arrange for a traditional pay phone at
a station as opposed to "help point speakerphone". The railway has to
pay for either one. If for some reason the pay phone had heavy usage,
the railway would get a commission, as happened in the old days. But
now the phones get very little use.

The cost of a local call in the US at a pay phone today is 50c. Long
distance rates vary greatly, and if a caller is not careful, can be
$25.00 for a quick call, which is ridiculous. Some pay phones take
coins for long distance at 25c/minute, and some have special deals
even for overseas calls.

When I was a kid a local payphone call was 10c. But long distance
could be expensive, for instance, a call to a place 60 miles away was
40c for the first 3 minutes.