Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1877-01-18


fastened together in a case about the
size of a nail brush formed his sole ap'
paratus. The nameiof the station to
which the passenger was going was
written upon the ticket at the time OF
issue. We can realize to ourselves how
this system would work now say at Clap
ham Junction or at the Underground
stations. But this system, primitive
rs it was, grew and tlourished, and be-
came the parent of the present one.
The use of tickets gradually increased,
until at last its inventor found that it
would be desirable to devote himself
entirely tothe 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 haye pursued it with an amount
of perseverance, and ingenuity perfect.
ly 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
'spilgrims going Mecca and others
for a fourth class, specially printed for
a South America line, for ''slaves
without shoes and stockings.'
The first great improvement made in
the tickets was in numbering them.
This was an enormous stride in ad-
vance. of the old tickets. Every rail.
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 thrustssthe 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
number of pigeon.holes, each holding
the tickets tor one station. Let US Sc
lect 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, 1920. He
has, therefore, issued 30 tickets of this
particular class to Salisbury, and is re-
sponsible for 80 fares. lie has Il re.
turn to fill up each day Of the numbers
on the tickets issued, and by seeing
that the last number on each day and
the first of the next are consecutive,
the officials at the headquarters are
able to have a complete check upon the
station clerks, and to preserve an al.
most inyariable accuracy in their &C.
counts.
Let us see how this ticket printing
is done. First of all, here are boxes
filed with colored pieces of cardboard,
which will soon be printed and made
into tickets. An order has come from
the Southwestern Railway for 50 many
thousand tickets from, say, Waterloo
to Bishopstoke. The order states color
or colors, the number of the last tick
ct in stock, and the average consump'
ton, which enables the printer to know
when the tickets ordered must be sent
in.
The little steam wrought machine
for printing railway tickets is an ex'
ceedingly ingenious piece of mechan'
ism. Imagine table about Is inches
wide by about % inches long, with
q long thin box rising above it at
the back and another box falling be.
low it ut the front. The table contains
the printing rollers and type ;the box.
es 1.-THE interior horizontal section Of
which is the size of ticket) are
for holding tickets. The upper
box is filed with a pile of pieces of
cardboard. One at a time, the lowest
card is jerked by a spring under the
printing machinery and falls into the
lower box, and in les than quarter
of a second it is printed and numbered
and stored in the other box. All that
the man has to do is to keep the upper
box filled with cards, remove the low
er box when filed, supply fresh empty
boxes, place the printed tickets in
rows, and see that the ink reservoir is
full. The machine does all the rest,
including the printing, the linking of
the type, and the moving and storing
of the tickets.
The numbering Is done by four
wheels, with their centers in h0ri:
zontal line, thus forming q cylinder
These have raised hume ON
their edges, which imprint themselves
on the tickets. The wheel which
bears the numerals in the unit place
moves so that fresh type is ready for
each successive ticket that in the
tens place at one.tenth that rate, and
so on.
The next step of counting the tick.
cts is a curious one. Though the
greatest care is taken to insure accu.
racy, mistakes will occur in printing
the numbers on the tickets. Some.
times a number is omitted; some
times two tickets are printed with the
same number. To provide. against
such casualties they are printed and
counted, and as it is impossible for
human eye and memory and judgment
to be infallible they are counted by
machinery. This machinery also con.
sists of a table with two boxes as be.
fore. This time the table is simply a
table with a hole in it large enough to
allow the Number of q ticket to sbe
seen through. At the side OF the
table is a cylinder wheel similar to
that above described, The number
on the cylinder issadjusted to the same
a. that printed on the first ticket to be
counted, The tickets are in copsecp,
tive order. Az boy turns handle
they are jerked from the upper box to
the lower, showing their numbers I'M
der the hole. The cylinder wheel re-.
wolves at the same rate, and therefore
the number. on each ticket and that on
the wheel ought to agree II they do
not agree, then II Il evident that 8
number has been omitted or perhaps
duplicated. The deficient ticket being
supplied or the surplus one removed,
the tickets are pressed together by
machinery. tied, packed. and sent to
their destination.
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