On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 18:52:00 GMT, "Eddie Bellass"
wrote:

But there isn't room for *all* of us in there..! The whole train
should be phone-free.
-----------------------------------

The development of this thread has taken me back 20 years
or so, to when I was British Telecom's Business Systems
Manager at Warrington and also an active writer/photographer
for RAIL and other rail enthusiast magazines.

I was on a BR (Provincial?) press trip from Sheffield to Liverpool
on the prototype Met-Camm Class 151 dmu --- during which we
ceremoniously 'opened' the then new Hazel Grove chord line.
I seem to remember that Bob Goundry himself cut the tape.

I had in my possession my then brand new Motorola 'brick' mobile
phone, which had just been distributed to BT managers, along with an
'open account', chargeable to publicity. It was called a 'brick'
phone because it looked like one, felt like one & was nearly as
heavy! We were encouraged to use it whenever we were out and about
and offer its use to anybody in business who might like to try it.

The maximum endurance of this early mobile phone was 30 mins
talk time and 10 hours standby but I had spare batteries for it so
I demonstrated it to both the BR management on board and
to fellow journalists. They flattened the first battery 'phoning the
office', but in the case of two evening paper hacks, this got their
'copy' into the last editions that same night!

I returned home with dozens of enquiries and business cards
in my pocket which I passed on to our BT Sales Dept. next day,
since I was an engineer. I also arranged for the loan of some demo
mobile phones to BR's Liverpool management, from which BT Sales
did extremely well not long afterwards. BT Engineers didn't earn any
commission but the sales people did, resulting in me and 3 of my top
technical staff being treated to a slap-up meal a few weeks later!

Next time you are overwhelmed by on-train mobile phone chatter,
remember who *may* just have started it all! :-) :-) :-)

{Sorry lads, I'm returning to my bunker now...}.


Lovely story Eddie - I forgive you.. :-)

It reminds me of the time I borrowed my fathers car (about 25 years
ago) to go to meet some friends in the the pub. My father was on call
(he was a CEGB engineer) and consequently I also had his pager (about
the size of a cheque book several times thicker) it was too big to fit
in a pocket. If he was called out he'd get "control" to ring his pager
and I'd have to get home quick. Fortunately it didn't go off but a lot
of people wanted to know what it was as I couldn't hide it.

G