Mobile phone signals seem to be interrupted very often when travelling by train. I have been wondering why exactly, and found two reoccuring explanations online:
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The train acts as a faraday cage, and so blocks radio waves.
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The train is moving too fast for a clear signal to be received.
Both of these arguments, however, seem also to hold for cars (inside which I have never experienced signal loss). I have seen the faraday argument debunked for cars, and assuming that trains then are also not really faraday cages, I am left in the dark as to why my phone loses signal in a train. Any ideas?
Best Answer
Could it be simply that there are a higher density of signals within a train carriage and fewer phone masts to service them at once?
That is, you often have a dense crowd of people in a small space, none of whom are occupied with driving, and who are more likely than the average car driver to be wishing to conduct business on the phone?
Plus the train is more substantial in construction, so the signal attenuation may be slightly greater than inside a car.
Also, trains frequently travel through extremely deep and steep cuttings, whereas roads rarely have these features?
Trains also travel through extremely secluded areas at times, where the phone infrastructure may be extremely modest. Roads are rarely so secluded from populated areas.
There is also a public safety incentive to ensure coverage along secluded stretches of motorways, to cope with crashes and such, whereas trains have separate communication infrastructure for their staff (which have full lineside coverage).