Millions of railway tickets are issued daily through booking
office windows all over the world. But how many of us have ever given a thought
to the fascinating story that lies behind the slip of cardboard called the
railway ticket, which serves as a passport to travel to the next village or take
a trip round the country.
In fact, tickets were in existence even before the advent of
railways. In earlier days people travelled by stage coach in Britain. The stage
coach ‘station’ consisted of inns where passengers booked their seats in advance.
Booking itself was a complicated business.
The booking clerk had to enter in his ledger details such as
the passenger’s name, the coach in which the accommodation was required etc.
The entries were made in triplicate. One copy was given to the passenger, one
to the guard of the coach and the third was retained in the book. Passengers
paid their fares to the guard at the end of the journey, and not at the time of
booking, as we do now.
This system of booking was continued in the early days of the
railways. But as traffic increased something less complicated and quicker was
necessary. It was the Leicester and Swammington Railway that first issued
passenger tickets in 1832.
The ticket was in the form of brass octagonal discs engraved
with the initials of the railway, destination station and a serial number. But
there was no date of issue.
Passengers paid the fares at the time of booking. They were
allowed into the train in order of
priority indicated by the serial number on the ticket. The guard collected the
discs at the end of the journey and returned them to the issuing station. They
were thus used over and over again.
Most of the contemporary railways of the world followed this
example of the British pioneers and issued metal tickets. They however did not
enjoy a long life although metal tokens are still issued to the officers of the railway.
As traffic increased , the necessity arose to speed up the process of issuing tickets to
passengers. It was Thomas Edmondson, Station Master at Milton, on the Newcastle
and Carlisle Railway, who invented the modern ticket system as it is in use
today. Born in 1972, Edmondson served for a time as a cabinet-maker and a
grocer. In 1836, when he was appointed
station master, he quickly realized the disadvantages of the then
ticket-issuing arrangements.
He set up a metal type in a wooden block and printed on
cardboard strips the name and class of the most frequently issued tickets.
These tickets were serially numbered and stored in a specially-designed case
stacked in numerical order with their lowest number at the top.
The bottom plate of the case was counter-balanced by an
arrangement of weighted strings and pulleys and on removal of the uppermost tickets,
the other tickets on the tube moved up. Later this arrangement was reversed,
putting the lowest numbered tickets at the bottom of the rack.
Then came the invention of ticket-dating machine. This
consists of a wooden press with two swinging jaws one of which had the dating
type, inked by a moving ribbon. It was first introduced on the Manchester and
Leeds Railway, where Thomas Edmondson was later transferred, and gradually in
India and other parts of the world.
The size of the railway ticket as designed by Edmondson is
two-and-a-quarter inches by one-and-a-quarter inches. In fact, this has become
standard in many countries including India. It is interesting to know that the
early tickets issued by the Manchester and Leeds Railway had distinguishing symbols
like ‘fleece’ for Manchester, a ‘cotton bag’ and a ‘thistle’ for the Scottish
lines. Bilingual tickets as in India are also common in countries like Belgium
and Switzerland.
To meet modern needs, various improvements have been
introduced in the ticket printing, dating and issuing machinery. Modern
electric machines, installed at busy stations combine printing and issuing of
tickets. They are operated either by the booking clerk or set in motion by the
insertion of coins. Indeed, they virtually do the work of a complete booking
office.
There are mechanical robots which display fare lists, take
passenger’s money, give change, print date and deliver tickets, all within a few
seconds. But they all largely follow sthe basic principles devised by Edmondson
more than a century ago. To him, the railways and the traveling public owe a
deep debt.
