RADIO IN TRAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 215, 11 September 1925, Page 9

RADIO IN TRAINS.

RELIEVING MONOTONE. WAY THEY HAVE EST CANADA. The radio equipment on trains in Canada, where the Canadian National Railways owns a whole chain of broadcasting stations, has reached a high level •of interest. j Passengers may listen either by headj phone or and anyone who ' has made a train journey comparable in distance to that from one side of the Dominion to the other, will realise j how greatly these amenities help in ! overcoming the tedium of so long a trip (says the "Times."; I The wireless service is also of very great use to farmers, who without it would be wholly out of touch with news concerned with daily events, or would only receive it very late. The. broad- • casting service includes weather forecasts, market quotations, and agricultural information, in addition to the usual entertainment features. It has also been found that this service may be used to great advantage in righting forest fires. The C.N.R. have ten stations in operation. Broadcasting from the stations in this system is really a piece of very useful Canadian propaganda. In all the larger Canadian cities listeners aro within range of a very great number of American stations, and the service supplied by the C.N.R. is an excellent contrast to the essentially American entertainments to which they might other- , wise, listen. The railway company i maintains its own technical staff, and its- own orchestras at the various sta-. .tions, and engages a very large number, lof high-class performers from outside. It •will be remembered that during i his last tour in Canada the Prince of Wales received a daily news service from I the London "Times," acting in co-opera-I tion with the Canadian National Railways. A summary of news was com-* I piled from the -Times' 1 immediately j after the paper had gone to press each I evening, and was telegraphed to Canada. j From the office of the Western Union i Telegraph Company in Montreal it was sent direct to the broadcasting station of the Canadian N.R. and was then transmitted to the train in which the Prince was travelling. No doubt at the same time the' '"Times" service was picked up by thousands of listeners in the Dominion.