The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1877-01-23
ENGLISH RAILWAY TICKETS.

A N English Journal says: 1t Is now
n some forty years since railway
tickets were printed and issued. The
originator of the idea was man em-
ployed at wayside station in the neigh
borhOod of Carlisle, England, and those
he then used were about the saine size
as the tickets now issued. But his ar
rangements for printing them were of
the most primitive description. In fact,
few types fastened together in case
about the size of nail-brush formed
his sole apparatus. The name OF the
station to which the passenger was GO
ing was written upon the ticket at the
time of issue. We can realize to our
selves how this system would work
now-say at Chaplain Junction, or Mt
the Underground stations. But this
system, primitive as it was, grew and
fourished, and became the parent of the
present one. The use of tickets on this
principle gradually increased, until, at
last, its inventor found that it would be
desirable to devote himself entirely to the
development of the new industry
From that day to this the printing of
hands of the same family, who have
pursued it with an amount of perse-
verance and ingenuity perfectly mar
velous. The railways of nearly the
whole world are supplied with tickets
from the one mandatory. There may
be seen in course of manufacture tickets
for English railways, Swedish, South
American, Egyptian, &c. We saw there,
on one occasion, Cairo tickets-a special
class-for pilgrims going to Mecca"
and others for fourth class, specially
printed for South American line, for
"slaves without shoes and stockings"
The first great improvement made in
the tickets was in numbering them
This was an enormous stride i'm advance
of the old tickets. Every railway pas
senger has noticed that each ticket is
numbered, and many people imagine
that that number is printed by the lit
tie press i'm front of the ticket clerk
when he thrusts the ticket in before it
is issued. But the duty of that press is
in reality to print the date-the number
ing being done before the ticket arrives
at the station. A large proportion of
the accuracy of the accounts of railways
depends upon these numbers. For ex-
ample take the case of booking clerk
at Reading. He has before him box with
a large number of pigeOn-holes, each
holding the tickets for one station. Let
us select the pigeon hole for Salisbury.
Before he begins his days work, he
knows that the first ticket from Read
ing to Salisbury will be say, 5,O26.-
When his days work is over, he finds
that the last ticket issued is say, 5,056.
He has, therefore issued thirty tickets
of this particular class to Salisbury, and
is responsible for thirty fares. He has
return to fill up each day of the num-
bers on the tickets issued, and by seeing
that the last number on each day, and
the first on the next, are consecutive,
the officials at headquarters are able to
have II complete check upon the station
clerks, and to preserve an almost in
variable accuracy in their accounts. Let
us see how this ticket printing ia DONE
First of all, here are boxes filled with
colored pieces of cardboard, which will
soon be printed and made into tickets.
An order has come from the South
western Railway for so many thousand
tickets, from, say Waterloo to Bishop
stroke. The order states color or colors,
the number of the last ticket in stock,
and the average consumption, which en-
ables the printer to know when the
tickets ordered must be sent in. The
little steam-wrought machine for
printing railway tickets is an exceeding
ly ingenious piece of mechanism. Inn
agine a table about 1sx24, with a long,
thin box rising above it at the back, and
another box falling below it at the
front. The table contains the printing
rollers and type-ease; the boxes (the
interior horizontal section of which is
the size of ticketl, are for holding
tickets. The upper box is filled with a
pile of pieces of cardboard One at
time, the lowest card is jerked by a
spring under the printing machinery,
and falls into the lower box; and in less
than a quarter of second ii is printed
and numbered. and safely stored in the
other box All that the man has to do
is 10 keep the upper box filled with
cards, remove the lower box when filed,
supply fresh empty boxes, place the
| printed tickets Ia rows, and see that the