The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-09-27
A RAILROAD TICKET.
AN INTERESTING SKETCH OF THE
LIFE OF THE COUPON PASSPORT.

II Is Born In n Printing oaice and Ends
Its Days In n Fiery Furnace-Detaiis of
n Complicated System of Checking Tip
the Tickets.
Thr life u railroad ticket is one Of the
most absorbing interest. 1t is a record Of
"intrioate simplicity" all through. From
the time 1t leaves the hands of the printer
until it arrives at the Office of the ticket
auditor of the railroad on which It was col
lected 1t hns PASSED through great num-
Der of processes that insure its safe trans
mission. correct sale and certain return to
the checking officer of the road, all Of u
complicated nature, yet all simple enough
Coupon tickets are, as "a rule, of but two
kinds In selling these tickets 1t is neccs
sary to SO arrange them that every road
over which they are honored Will have
something to show for it. For this reason
n coupon Is provided for each road, and
the conductors on that road tear it off when
it is presented to them for passage
What is known as the StroiD borg form Is
in general use all over tho United States
This is patented ticket and all of the
roads pay royalty for its use. On u jour
ney from st. Louis to Eel Paso, Tex, there
would be three coupons. The ticket would
be sold In St. Louis by the Missouri Pacific
railway, and the first coupon would read
"Missouri Pacific railway st. Louis to
! Sedala, Mo. The second would read
Missouri. Kansas and. Texas railway
Sedalia to Fort Worth Tex" The third
would read: Texas and Pacific railway
Fort Worth to destination between the
punch marks Every coupon agent has
one of the Stromberg punches and he
| punches the point of destination on the
last coupon.
| The other style of coupon ticket is what
is called in railroad parlance the skeleton
! form" 1t is blank as far as both starting
| point or destination is concerned, and is
issued to the smaller agents. When they
! have call for one of these tickets, they fill
out as many coupons as there are roads to
be travelled over
The tickets are sold to the passengers
and remain in their hands for but short
time, if the conductor of the train is vigil
liant, and he usually is enough so to get all
the ticFets before the next station is
reached
And there the public's acquaintance
ends
The conductor, always suave and ready
to be obliging, has many things on his
mind to look after One of these Is the
disposition of his ticket collections for the
trip.
He gets them together out of his sew
eral pockets at the end of his trip and as
sorts them III station order He then
counts them All collections from mileage
books are also counted carefully He then
enters up on u rcI ort blank the numbered
tickets collected and the number of mile
age slips taken up and between what
points. On the same report he also er terS
the number of cash fares and between
what points collected
This report with the tickets, is inGlOsod
in an cnveloTe md mnilCd to the genera!
auditor or tie ticket auditor of the road
Here the real work on the ticket begins
The auditor receives reports daily from the
agents along the line, and it is his bust
ness to check them up against the receipts
of tickets from train collections
The conductors collections are brought
in and turned over to yonng men in tho
auditors office and by them opened Tn,
tickets inclosed are carefully counted to Sc,
that the conductors statement on his re-
port is correct They are then entered NJ
on blank ass from, Ito, number o
Z tickets" and amount, and the total i
struck This is done in order to arrive u
full record of this is kept and month";,
average per trip taken. The traffic official
are then enabled to see whether certain
runs are paying and to take steps to max
them pay or withdraw them 1t is odd I,
look down the list of u certain train unS
see how nearly alike are each days earn
ipgs Except where there has been hi:
excursion the collections do not vary to al
appreciable degrees from day to day
The ticket checkers assert all of TIL
months collections in order of dcstina
ton. Thus, if st. Louis be the station
that is to be checked, all tickets from st
Louis to jefferson City are got together
The agent may have reported the sale O
Nos. 1921 to 1870. 100 tickets 1t /
the business of the ticket sorter to see hoy
many of these tickets have been colloctc
and to mark the report of the agent t
show those that have not been turned in
Whenever these missing tickets do come il
the report of the agent for the month il
which they were sold is resurrected fror
some dusty box and the missing ticke
checked as "in" 1t is surprising HOY
many tickets are belated and how man
never come in. Frequently persons bu
tickets that are limited and cannot us
: them until the limit has expired, whe
ticket may not show up for month G
two, when 1t is unlimited
Coupon tickets requiremuch more care
full handling than local tickets, and tn
men who keep the books on them receiy
I better salaries than the local ticket sorter'
All coupons tickets are turned over I
them from the train collections and b
them carefully assorted AS to roads of ISSUE
Each ticket or coupon is then carefully II
corded in book SO that its history can
traced from its start to its destination A
the end of each month a statement Is REL
dered to all interested lines by the roa
that issues the tickets of all sales Owe
their lines In this way kind of clearin
house arrangement is kept up and tt
= debtor road makes remittance b the cret
A.. itor road after deducting offsetting a.
\ counts.
And then comes the end of the railroa
tickets life. AS soon as all reports hay
been checked up and careful division
u earnings-that is, the apportionmentt TO ii