WIFI on Southwest Chief

Just got back from trip to LA. Rode the Chief to Albuquerque; had wifi in sleepers.

Congrats, wifi was not available on my April trips on CONO, Empire Builder, Coast Starlight(except PPC) nor the California Zephyr. Not a problem as I am on the train to enjoy the ride and my Verizon wireless works just fine for my phone. If fact I leave my laptop in larger bag that I do not bring to the room in my sleeper.

That's awesome. Finally getting newer technology.

A LD train has to be close enough to cell phone towers for wifi to work.

I suspect large portions of routes taken by the CZ and EB aren't close enough when they travel through areas with little population and few roads.

I was on the SWC back in late October and my SCA Peggy informed me that wifi was available on that train. I couldn't get it to work at all on the entire trip. Glad to hear that obviously improvements have been made.

KmH said:

A LD train has to be close enough to cell phone towers for wifi to work.

I suspect large portions of routes taken by the CZ and EB aren't close enough when they travel through areas with little population and few roads.

Click to expand...

A lot of the Sunset Limited has pretty sketchy cell service!

Watch out on the SL that your phone/computer is set for non-roaming when you are near the Mexician border (like near ELP)!

I had left it on roaming and checked the weather. It was picked up by a Mexician cell tower - and I got a VERY expensive international roaming charge!

the_traveler said:

Watch out on the SL that your phone/computer is set for non-roaming when you are near the Mexician border (like near ELP)!

I had left it on roaming and checked the weather. It was picked up by a Mexician cell tower - and I got a VERY expensive international roaming charge!

Click to expand...

With my Galaxy S4, I can block international roaming while still allowing domestic roaming.

FrensicPic said:

the_traveler said:

Watch out on the SL that your phone/computer is set for non-roaming when you are near the Mexician border (like near ELP)!

I had left it on roaming and checked the weather. It was picked up by a Mexician cell tower - and I got a VERY expensive international roaming charge!

Click to expand...

With my Galaxy S4, I can block international roaming while still allowing domestic roaming.

Click to expand...

I think that's pretty standard on any Android phone nowadays, I've been able to do that on S4, 5, 6, and 7 (yes, I'm a tech junkie, don't judge!) As a matter of fact, I believe Android has it set by default to block international data, until you tell it otherwise. I can't speak for iPhones, as I've never owned one.

Great news. I had no WiFi on the SWC in May last year.

I rode on the SWC in a sleeper from ABQ-LAX (departing Sunday of this week). There was no mention of wifi, though in retrospect I didn't actually check my phone to see if there was any wifi signal. You'd think if it was available there would have been some notice given to passengers, but I guess you can't actually make that assumption.

My wife and I took the SWC from Chicago to ABQ the first week of May. On #3 there was a hand written sign next to the Coffee Pot with the password. we were also notified by car attendant about the wifi over the PA speaker. No sign on #4 on PA announcement return trip but we were given password by the attendant.

There were some signal loss while traveling thru some of the barren areas. Overall we had good coverage. Wifi signal lost at same time cell phone lost signal.

Triley said:

FrensicPic said:

the_traveler said:

Watch out on the SL that your phone/computer is set for non-roaming when you are near the Mexician border (like near ELP)!

I had left it on roaming and checked the weather. It was picked up by a Mexician cell tower - and I got a VERY expensive international roaming charge!

Click to expand...

With my Galaxy S4, I can block international roaming while still allowing domestic roaming.

Click to expand...

I think that's pretty standard on any Android phone nowadays, I've been able to do that on S4, 5, 6, and 7 (yes, I'm a tech junkie, don't judge!) As a matter of fact, I believe Android has it set by default to block international data, until you tell it otherwise. I can't speak for iPhones, as I've never owned one.

Click to expand...

I was on the Texas Eagle from LA to Little Rock last year and passing thru the El Paso area i ended up being on a Mexican Network. I finally got ahold of ATT, my carrier, once we got to a point where there was cell service further up in Texas and they set my account to block international roaming and cleared any of the charges for the international usage. I gather that is a frailty common occurrence. i would suggest you contact your carrier prior to any travel in that area of the country. Since I'm not a tech junkie I'm not aware of anyway of blocking international roaming via my iPhone.

davidcsar said:

Since I'm not a tech junkie I'm not aware of anyway of blocking international roaming via my iPhone.

Click to expand...

On the iPhone, go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Roaming and turn off the "Voice Roaming" option (which also turns off international data roaming).

I believe the voice versus data roaming option is for ios 8. My iPhone 4 can only turn off all data roaming.

When I rode the SWC in January, the free wifi service in our sleeper was being provided by the SCA via a hotspot tether broadcast from his own cell phone.