Amtrak's California Capitol Corridor trains boot up free Wi-Fi via @sacbee

Free Wi–Fi service on Capitol Corridor trains was welcome news to passengers. They'd tell you all about it, if you could get them to put down their smartphones or laptop computers.

Effective Monday, passengers traveling on the Capitol Corridor, the San Joaquin and the Pacific Surfliner trains can connect to the Internet through AmtrakConnect for Web surfing and using email, officials announced.

Passengers also can access corporate networks through most Virtual Private Networks (VPN), making train trips a good time to catch up on work.

"It made the ride easier because you can entertain yourself on the 'Net," said Booker Dabis, who took the train from Richmond to Sacramento with his son Monday afternoon. "It's like you're at home."

Dabis said while the connection was slower than he is used to, it worked without interruption.

Charian DeAmeral of Sacramento said she can use her tablet computer without having to bum a connection off other passengers with a mobile hotspot.

DeAmeral said it had been disappointing to have wireless service come and go during her frequent trips to the Bay Area.

Melissa Campbell of New York had settled in for the ride from Sacramento to the Bay Area and was surprised to learn of the free Wi-Fi.

The Wi-Fi was funded by state passenger rail agencies reinvesting cost savings from other completed rail projects.

"Free Wi-Fi is our early holiday gift to loyal train passengers who have wanted this service for some time," said David Kutrosky, Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority managing director.

More than 5.5 million passengers rode the three state-supported trains this fiscal year, up more than 7.5 percent.

California rail service providers have been working on offering Wi-Fi for more than five years. But pilot projects have yielded less than ideal results, said Debbie Mullins, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.

"We didn't want to deliver something that didn't work," Mullins said.

The biggest obstacle was limited bandwidth through third-party cellular data networks along many routes, according to a news release.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Ed Fletcher, (916) 321-1269. Follow him on Twitter @SB_Ed_Fletcher.


Running in circles.

1687945454

In Sacramento they want to revitalize R street which is flanked by State of California offices. It was a mess of gravel, pot holes and forgotten trolly tracks. So they rip up the street, tear out the tracks an then replace the tracks as historic and use cement to pave it, not asphalt. Wonder how long it will last. I do admit that its a vast improvement from its previous state.

Jackass "star" Ryan Dunn dies in car accident - via @Jalopnik, @raywert

Jackass Ryan Dunn, who will forever be known for sticking a Hot Wheels car up his own ass in the movie "Jackass," and another as-of-yet-unidentified person, both died in a crash outside of Philadelphia early this morning.

Police say they don't know whether the 34-year-old Dunn, who appeared in all of the "Jackass" movies, or the unidentified person was driving the car. The shot up top was taken at the scene of a one-car accident that took place in West Goshen, Pa. around 3:30 AM Monday morning. It's too mangled to tell, but it may in fact be the remains of Dunn's Porsche 911 GT3.

Police also don't know whether alcohol was to blame — but Dunn did tweet out the following picture from his Tumblr account hours before his death.

Our guess is that isn't an iced tea he's drinking.

Traffic cop at Isle of Man TT shows lighter side of policing — via @Autoblog

Video: Traffic cop at Isle of Man TT shows lighter side of policing

by Jeff Glucker (RSS feed) on Jun 15th 2011 at 12:31PM

isle of man policeman


Isle of Man cop keeps crowd laughing – Click above to watch video after the jump

The 2011 Isle of Man TT has come and gone. Like everything in this day and age, it will continue to live on thanks to videos posted on the internet. One such video has nothing to do with the actual race, instead it shows a local policeman who knows how to have fun on the job.

The British Crown Dependency sees plenty of traffic around the time of the TT, and this particular cop has been tasked with directing the portion flowing through a central part of town. A crowd has gathered, and the policeman knows how to keep them entertained. He forces one rider to do a sobriety test, stages an impromptu drag race, lets another rider do a burnout while he tries to get the co-rider's phone number and basically keeps things lighthearted, much to the delight of the onlookers. Click past the jump to check out how one cop keeps things fun on the Isle of Man.

[Source: YouTube]