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My experience in London has been quite positive.

In London you can rely on good coverage _outside_ the train, and I suspect (having visited 3 years ago) that the hardware is OK. The real trouble is when you do suburban/intercity trips, often through routes that have less coverage than motorways (which are prioritised by operators).

Why would motorways be prioritized? Maybe streaming music is more common than I think, but rail passengers have a lot more attention available to dedicate to a phone screen.

Because business people place calls from cars and they may represent thousands of users in a corporate mobile contract.

At least in Britain, a first class train ticket is generally considered fairly luxurious for longer trips -- mostly used by people travelling for business. Take a taxi to the station, the train to the required city, and another taxi to the destination.

Manchester to London tomorrow morning is £184 in standard class, £255 in first class. People/businesses who can afford that are choosing it because it's better than driving.

(Both tickets are significantly cheaper if booked in advance.)

I any case, there's voice service over almost the entire country. It's the fast data coverage that can be a little patchy on some more remote bits of railway lines.

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