On Apr 3, 5:49*pm, "
wrote:

Interesting. Any pictures of the phones themselves?

The article had a drawing of one. But they looked basically like a
standard single slot coin phone.



Metro North Railroad, in New York, had installed phones on their trains,
at least on the New Haven line EMUs in the late '90s, though the
explosion of GSM service has since seen their demise.

I remember they made a big deal about it when the phones went in, and
I think there was a phone for every two calls of a train, which is a
lot.

If memory serves, they weren't that cheap to use, perhaps $1/minute.

Presumably they contracted with a telephone carrier for the telephone
sets and service. But I don't know who paid for the installation,
which included the appropriate power supply for the phone and an
antenna, plus all connections.

As you mentioned, personal cell phones made the train phones
obsolete. IIRC, it happened fairly quickly, probably before the
installation cost was amortized. I wonder who got stuck with that
expense.

Amtrak also installed similar phones on their trains.