On Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 1:14:03 PM UTC-5, Phil Kane wrote:   
   > On Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:19:29 -0800 (PST), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:   
   >   
   > >(Some major trains, including the 20th C Limited and Congressional   
   > >had on-board radio-telephone service, a precursor to cellular).   
   >   
   > Not cellular, because the land-side stations were individual, not   
   > clustered.  The Pennsylvania Railroad pioneered this in the 1930s,   
   > years before what we now call "land mobile" communications became   
   > common.   
      
   Not sure what you mean by "clustered".  However, the radio telephone   
   service offered on the railroads was indeed a precursor to cellular,   
   that is, a telephone service on board a moving vehicle that could   
   connect to any landside telephone.   
      
   They advanced the technology when the put phones on the Metroliner   
   since that had automatic handoff, which is what cellular utilized   
   (except much smaller cells).   
      
   AFAIK, the PRR service was for internal railroad communications,   
   not telephone calls for the public.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)