RAILWAY TICKET CENTENARY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 58, 10 March 1937, Page 9

RAILWAY TICKET CENTENARY

. A centenary, whiclv appears to haw. passed unrecognised was that of th? inventor of our familiar railway tickev In..the year 1836,..the. "Weekly Scots--man" reminds us, Thomas Edmondsoit was stationmaster at-Milton, a small! township on. the theii Newcastle antf Carlisle railway. Hailway travelling was in its infancy at the time. Th< sort of .ticket commonly employed waf similar'to that used by the old stago coaches —a .rather clumsy and inept thing. Probably the majority of st;t tionmasters.would have 'rested quili satisfied with such tickets, but .Mb Edmondson had ideas of something better. He aimed at something smaller, more convenient to handle, bearing the names of stations, price of specific journey, and, if possible, date of issue or expiry. He accordingly constructed a hand-stamp with types which could be shifted at will,pprinterd r a- quantity of tickets for each station on the lino, using strips of stiff paper, and numbered each ticket—at first with pen and ink. Then with a pair of scissors,.he cut them neatly apart. As a last device he constructed a case, to contain the tickets, and invented an instrument which cleverly added the date to tickets which were taken but of the case. Month and day cannot be given for the first production of the ripw tickets. These have not been recorded. But we know that the initial production took place in 1836.