RAILWAY TICKET-DATING MACHINE

New Zealand Tablet, 6 May 1915, Page 43

RAILWAY TICKET-DATING MACHINE

The Railway Department has acquired the patent rights of a machine for dating railway passengers’ tickets. This machine (says the Otayo Daily Times), which is the invention of Mr. W. P. Nolan, station master at Waitahuna, is simple in construction, but very ingenious. The principal advantage of the machine is that, it dates the two halves of a return ticket simultaneously, and without turning the ticket over. Tile machine possesses two sets of type, worked upwards, enabling a ticket to be completely dated in one operation. To do the same work with the present machine requires three operations. It is obvious, from these particulars, that tickets can, with this machine, be issued in half the time occupied at present, and for this reason the patent will prove a boon to booking clerks in the matter of time saved, and to the general public in obviating the unpleasant crushing which repeatedly occurs, especially on holidays and special occasions, when there is a rush for tickets a few minutes prior to the departure of the train. It should also lessen to a great extent the possibility of delay to passenger trains. The manipulation of the machine is much simpler than of the machines now in use, and the cost of construction to the department will also he less than the cost of procuring the others. The Railway Department has had the machine extensively tested for a considerable time at the principal booking offices, and the results have been so satisfactory that negotiations with Mr. Nolan for its purchase have now been completed, and the machine will bo manufactured for general use in the ticket offices throughout the Dominion. It reflects great credit on Mr. Nolan to have been the means of bringing about such an improvement. The old make of ticketdaters is still in vogue in the . Commonwealth and at Home, and it is expected that Mr. Nolan will have no difficulty in placing his machine on the market in these countries.