The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1877-01-25
Railway Tickets.

Within living memory railroads were
worked without tickets. In the infancy
of steam traffic passengers paid their
fares to the clerk and walked upon the
station platform with their friends un-
| til the train arrived, were then convey
ed to their destinations and left the
railway without giving any proof to
the officials of the station where they
disembarked that they paid their fare
at the point Of departure. There was,
therefore. no check upoa the clerk who
received the money and none also upon
4 the passengers-a state of things, both
with regard to society, and also with
regard to the size of the rail road
traffic, very different from what 1t is
now.
1t is now forty years since railway
tickets were printed and issued. The
originator of the idea was a man who
was employed at little wayside sta
ton in the neighborhood of Carlisle,
and those he then used were about the
same size as the ticket now issued.
But his arrangements for printing
them were Of the most primitive des-
cription. In fact a few types were
fastened together in case about the
size of a nail brush formed his sole ap-
paratus. The name OF the station TO
which the passenger was going was
written upon the ticket at the time OF
issue. We can realize to ourselves how
thissystem would work now say at Clap
ham Junction or at the Underground
stations. But this system, primitive
as it was, grew and fourished, and be-
came the parent of the present one.
The use of tickets gradually increased,
until at last it's 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 railway tickets has remain
ed in the hands of the same family,
who have pursued it with an amount
of perseverance and ingenuity perfect
~ marvellous. The railways Of nearly
the whole world are supplied with
tickets from the one mandatory.
There may be seen in course of manu-
facture, tickets for English railways,
Swedish, South American, Egyptian,
etc. We saw there on one occasion,
, Cairo tickets-to special class-for
| for fourth class, specially printed for
South America line. for s'slayes
, without shoes and stockings.
The first great improvement made III
| the tickets was in numbering them.
, This was an enormous stride IN ad-
vance Of the old tickets. Every rail-
J way passenger has noticed that each
: ticket is numbered, and many people
! imagine that the number is printed by
+ the little press in front Of the ticket
clerk when he thrusts the ticket in be-
: fore it is issued. But the duty Of that
| press in reality is to print the date
| the numbering being done before the
. ticket arrives at the station. A large
proportion Of the accuracy Of the &C.
! counts of railway companies depends
| upon these numbers. For example,
/ take the case Of booking-clerk at Read
. ing. He has before him box with a
5 number OF pigeon-holes, each holding
the tickets for one station. Let us Sc
q lect the pigeon-h0le for Salisbury
Q Before he begins his days work he
q knows that the first ticket from Read
! ing 10 Salisbury will be. say, 5026. lie
8 has, therefore, issued 30 tickets or this
particular class to Salisbury. and Is re-
d sponsible for 80 fares. He has re-
: turn TO ill up each day Of the numbers
v on the tickets issued. and by seeing
a that the last number on each day and
i the first Of the next are consecutive
the officials at the headquarters arc
e able to have complete check upon the
! station clerks. and to preserve an al
i most invariable accuracy in their &C
8 counts.
! Let us see how this ticket printing
!, is done. First of all, here are boYe.
filled with colored pieces of cardboard
J. which will soon be printed and made
d into tickets. An order has come from
8 the Southwestern Railway for so man.
{ thousand tickets from, say, Waterloo
u to Bishopstoke. The order states colol
J, or colors, the number of the last tick
ct in stock, and the average cOnsump
l. ton, which enables the printer TO know
r when the tickets ordered must be sen
It in.
" The little steam wrought machin,
), for printing railway tickets is an ex
IS ceedingly ingenious piece of mechan
ism. Imagine table about Is inche
70 wide by about % inches long, Will
d long thin box rising above it a
n the back and another box falling be
IS low it at the front. Thetable contain
+, the printing rollers and type !; the box
le es 1.-THE interior horizontal section o
v which is the size of a ticket ar
Lfor holding tickets. The uppe
5. box is filed with pile Of pieces o
"a cardboard. One at time, the loves
8 card is jerked by spring under tn