Free Wi-Fi has appeared on commuter trains. Is there wi-fi on Russian Railways trains? How does the Internet work on trains?

You can get comfortable not only in a SV carriage or a compartment, but also in a reserved seat or a general one.
For a comfortable stay on the train, we will highlight some points.

Sockets

Sockets in reserved seat cars are located opposite the conductor (near the titanium with boiling water), near the toilet (from the inside or outside), as well as in the car itself above side seats 39 and 51. In some cars, sockets are located not along the side seats, but in the compartment part above the lower shelves.

In standard compartment carriages there are sockets in the corridor. The first is between compartments No. 3 and 4, the second is between compartments No. 7 and 8.
All sockets can be used freely and free of charge. If they don’t work, ask the conductor to turn it on.

Internet and calls

Rates for communications in roaming are rarely lenient. But costs can be reduced.

First, before your trip or right on the train, call your mobile operator and ask them to talk about packages and roaming services. This alone will allow you to optimize costs.

Secondly, check whether Wi-Fi is available on your train. It is in Sapsan, in double-decker trains, in some branded and day trains, etc. And it’s happening more and more often. Look - perhaps you will have free Internet all the way (where there is a network, really). Turn on the search for networks on your smartphone or tablet, and if there are any available, ask the conductor which one is official. Usually it is called either by the name of the train (for example Sapsan_Free) or by the name of the provider (Beeline_WiFi, for example).

Comfortable shoes

Take light slippers with you on the road. This will allow you not to put on your shoes every time you go to the buffet, toilet or just throw out the trash.
Often slippers can be purchased from the conductor. But in luxury carriages, slippers are included in the standard set given to passengers.

Alcohol

The train is a public place. If you are disturbed by neighbors who are carried away by vices, you have the right to demand that the conductor restore order. He has enough tools for this - from the head of the train to calling the police, who will meet the train at the nearest station and remove the rowdies from it.

Nutrition

Trains usually have a dining car or buffet, plus dining car staff often walk around with carts. You can buy tea and snacks from them. In compartments and SVs, as a rule, there is a button to call the conductor; dishes from the restaurant car can be ordered directly in the compartment.
Check whether meals are included in the price of your ticket - it depends on the class of carriage. Strizh trains have drinking water dispensers; they can be used free of charge. Also, all long-distance trains have titans with hot water; you can ask the conductor for dishes - this is also free.
On branded trains, conductors often have a refrigerator and microwave. You can ask them to save or heat up the food you took with you on the road. This is not provided for by the rules, but often the guides simply meet people halfway

Today we’ll talk about one very useful website for travelers around the country - pasline.ru. Millions of people use Russian Railways intercity trains in our country every day. And even if the travel time takes only one night, it’s nice to while away it not only by talking with a fellow traveler, but also by watching videos from your favorite channel or reading interesting articles on a website or forum. And in this regard, it is very pleasant that today more and more long-distance trains from RZD are equipped with free wifi.

Connecting to RZD WiFi via PassLine Travel Companion

When you enter the carriage and turn on Wi-Fi on your smartphone, you find a free Wi-Fi network called “RZD”. It is not password protected and anyone can connect to it. However, when you try to open a website, a white page appears - what’s wrong? Few people know, but

In order to connect to the Russian Railways wi-fi network, you must first register and log into your personal account for the “Fellow Traveler” service on the website passline.ru

So, we connect to the RZD network and enter the address http://passline.ru in the browser.

We get to the site Companion Traveler. Here click on the menu icon and select “Login”

Here again click on the button of the same name to enter the Internet

• Last 4 digits of passport number
• Car number - if you have, for example, 7, then write “07”
• Seat number

In the second case, you need to write down the full number of your train ticket and last name - as it is indicated in the travel document

That's all - now you can safely use free Internet on the train. I must say that his speed is quite satisfactory along the entire route!

Wi-Fi does not work on the train or at the Russian Railways station - the Internet does not connect

As soon as RZD installed free Wi-Fi everywhere at their stations and trains, problems immediately arose with the Internet connection. I myself have often found myself in situations where the phone connects to a Wi-Fi network, but the Internet does not work. And on the screen there is something like this:

The fact is that there are many WiFi access points installed at train stations. And on trains they are available in every carriage. But they all work from the same router, which is connected to the Internet and distributes IP addresses to all devices on the network.

If your phone or laptop connects to WiFi, but the Internet does not work, this means that the main router is not functioning correctly. And you can't do anything about it. All that remains is to wait for it to be rebooted or use the mobile Internet.

The Internet has already firmly and permanently entered our lives and filled many of its areas: work, leisure, communication. Its influence is so great that many feel uncomfortable when they are deprived of the opportunity to access the network. But at home, at work or on the road between them, a person is always online. There is a broadband connection, 4G, which will not let you down, and there is always stable Internet within the city. But what about when traveling long distances? How to stay connected when there is no coverage from cellular operators and you can’t even dream of cable? What type of transport can offer us the Internet on the road?

Long-distance trains leave their passengers without access to the network for a long time, and even mobile Internet does not always help, since the coverage area of ​​cellular operators does not correspond to the length of our railways. After all, on the way, some people need to work, some need to contact their relatives, and many people just want to turn on a movie to while away the night. Therefore, when buying a train ticket, many people ask the question: “Is there Wi-Fi on the trains?”

Internet access initial screen

Electric trains

Let's start with commuter trains.

Important! All of the following applies to Moscow electric trains. There is no reliable information about Russian Railways’ attempts to expand the Moscow experiment. The exception will be Ufa electric trains connected to the Internet as part of the Topar program.

Back in 2015, TsPPK equipped one of its electric trains with the Internet. At the same time, Aeroexpress and Lastochka acquired it. When the experiment was considered successful, the carrier equipped 68 of its trains with such equipment. In 2017, 25 new electric trains were purchased: EP2D and EG2Tv, which were connected to the project.

In the same year, it was announced that the Internet access system would be available on an additional 400 trains. Many people ask: “How can I find out if there is Internet on the train?” All trains that have a free Wi-Fi connection are marked with special stickers in the passenger compartments and vestibules. Currently, such stickers adorn Standard Plus and Express trains on all routes.

Since the provider is Maxima Telecom, which has already established Internet access in the metro and ground transport, today the largest seamless high-speed Internet zone in Europe operates in Moscow. For this purpose, all vehicles involved in this project were equipped with equipment for connecting to the mobile network. To connect to this zone, you will need to register using a phone number or a government services portal account; you do not need to enter any passwords.

Sticker on the train

Pay attention! If wireless Internet users have previously registered to use wi-fi in the metro, then you can connect on a bus or train without repeating this procedure. According to user reviews, setting up access is not difficult, Wi-Fi reception is stable, Internet speed is around 2-5 Mb/sec.

The service is in demand, because according to representatives of the provider, in 2017 alone, over 900 thousand passengers connected to the transport Internet about 3.5 million times.

Now Moscow passengers can while away their travel time by watching their favorite TV series, but what about on long-distance trains? The answer to this question worries many, as questions are increasingly being asked about how to connect Wi-Fi on a Russian Railways train.

Trains

Experts say it's not that simple. It is one thing to equip trains operating within the coverage area of ​​cellular towers with the Internet, and quite another to give access to the network to those trains that leave city limits. After all, the length of Russian railways is about 85 thousand km, and ensuring stable communications along this entire length is a rather difficult task. Nevertheless, Russian Railways continues to work in this direction, and today they have something to boast about - we can confidently say that there is wi-fi on Russian Railways trains.

Sapsan trains were among the first to receive Wi-Fi on board. Passengers with first and business class tickets use the Internet for free. The rest connect by paying for the service with a bank or scratch card. Megafon subscribers can pay from their personal account. Cost – 100 rubles/hour.* Then the Allegro trains, which run from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, acquired this service.

Sticker on the train

In order to bring this project to life, we had to look for interesting and practical engineering solutions. You can connect the Internet to the train either via cellular or satellite. The second one is more reliable, but more expensive. As a result, a hybrid system was chosen. It will connect to cellular base stations as long as it receives a stable signal. But as soon as the train leaves the coverage area of ​​these stations, it connects to the satellite. The received signal goes to one of the cars where the server and network equipment are installed. It distributes the signal to access points installed in other cars.

Now the development of wifi in Russian Railways trains is also observed on long-distance routes. So which trains have wifi? Wi-Fi can be found on trains called Leo Tolstoy (Helsinki), Strizh (Berlin and Nizhny Novgorod), Volga (Nizhny Novgorod), Nevsky Express (St. Petersburg) and other branded trains. There are long-distance routes that do not depart from Moscow, for example “Northern Palmyra” from St. Petersburg and “White Nights” from Vologda. Total number – 14.

Pay attention! To watch some films you will have to pay extra separately (80 – 250 rubles*).

Moreover, passengers of these trains will not only have access to the Internet, but also to media content on the train’s server. The price is around 100 – 200 rubles per day*. For this money, they will be able to use a variety of content, including films, music and audiobooks. For the right to use them, Russian Railways is negotiating with online cinemas Okko, Tvzavr and Tutu.tv.

Passengers can also order dishes from the restaurant carriage and order a taxi, which will be waiting for you at the station upon arrival. Using this service you can track the location and speed of the train online. All passengers can use it, regardless of which carriage they are traveling in: compartment or reserved seat. By the way, all these trains have a sufficient number of sockets with which you can charge your devices or connect something else with a power of up to 100 watts. They begin to function from the moment the train moves.

Wi-Fi on the train

The growing popularity of this service is noticeable in the number of reviews that passengers leave. Among them there are those who talk about problems. Sapsan passengers often complain about intermittent communications. Some passengers who constantly use branded trains on the route Moscow - St. Petersburg claim that at times the connection speed drops so much that even text messaging is impossible. There are problems in other areas as well.

For example, on the Moscow-Adler train, which was an internet pioneer among long-distance trains, there are still problems with Wi-Fi connectivity. Russian Railways promised to carry out appropriate work to increase the capacity of the equipment and the stability of its operation.

The era of trains with carriages without air conditioning, normally working sockets and other benefits of civilization will soon pass. And to make travel on trains and electric trains more comfortable, carriers are already doing a lot. And equipping railway transport with the Internet is proof of this.

*Prices are current as of June 2018