In message , at 13:54:10 on Sun,
1 Jun 2008, Neil Williams remarked:
Because Electron & Solo require a real-time connection to your account
to check current balance, and that can't be got by theon-train
equipment.

It could quite easily be done by use of mobile phone technology - but
it would be expensive, and more importantly, very slow.

Very slow indeed if the train was out of phone coverage - which seems to
happen a lot.
--
Roland Perry