Yahoo Inc. is hoping commuters will get on board its new venture with Amtrak, which aims to help passengers surf the Web as they ride the rails. The company said Wednesday that it has Internet-enabled trains on three popular rail routes, equipping them with Compaq iPaq Pocket PCs and providing free wireless Internet access.

The wireless trains will either have iPaqs stationed in cafe cars or attached to the back of seats, and users will be allowed unlimited access to the Web for the duration of their trip, says Chris Wu, who heads the company's wireless unit. The interactive train cars will run on three routes; the Acela Regional in the Northeast, the Capitols in Northern California, and the Hiawatha in the Midwest. The program is expected to run for six months.

Wu says the project, a result of a partnership between Yahoo, Compaq, and Amtrak, aims to promote Yahoo's Web properties as well as the technologies involved. "The goal really is to give people an experience, to put the device in people's hands so that they can see it, feel it, experience it," he says. Yahoo is not releasing financial details of the project, but Wu says the wireless Web browsers could eventually be a revenue source for the company. "It's something we're actively looking at," he says. "These things are not just promotions to get people to talk about it."

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Steve Weinstein isn't sure that there's any real money to be drawn from this alliance, but says the service is a smart way for Yahoo to promote itself. "They want to increase exposure to their properties so that Yahoo becomes more and more essential to people."