The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) is hosting a trial of mobile satellite uplink technology, aiming to improve on-board connectivity for passengers and train operators.

A technical demonstration service will run between Pickering and Grosmont each day for up to three weeks, testing the effectiveness of hardware for next generation mobile communications.

A test train, carrying satellite and terrestrial communications equipment, will run on the NYMR’s line to assess the level of connectivity achieved, comparing new satellite and existing terrestrial mobile (4G) networks. This test train is not open to the public and will not effect NYMR’s scheduled services.

The developers want to test this in a railway environment before moving to trials on the mainline railway, and chose the NYMR, which runs for eighteen miles from Pickering to Whitby.

The trial is co-ordinated by multinational information technology consulting and software development company CGI and supported by the UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Icomera and OneWeb.