He introduced his system on the Manchester and Leeds Railway.[1] Previously, railway companies had used handwritten tickets, as was the practice for stagecoaches, but it was laborious for a ticket clerk to write out a ticket for each passenger and long queues were common at busy stations.
A faster means of issuing pre-printed tickets was needed. There was also a need to provide accountability by serial-numbering each ticket to prevent unscrupulous clerks from pocketing the fares, who now had to reconcile the takings against the serial numbers of the unsold tickets at the end of each day.
The Edmondson system came into general use with the creation of the Railway Clearing House in 1842, becoming "the essential standard feature".[2]
Edmondson tickets in the United Kingdom
The tickets were printed on card cut to 1+7⁄32 by 2+1⁄4 inches (31.0 by 57.2mm), with a nominal thickness of 1⁄32 inch (0.79mm). The whole system, from printing to bulk storage to ticket racks, dating and issue, was based on these measurements. Although there is some small variation nowadays (metricated to 30 x 57 x 0.75mm for example), it is still a vital component of the system.
Cabinet for Edmondson tickets, Sapucai station, FCPCAL, Paraguay
The tickets in each series were individually numbered. When a ticket was issued, it was date-stamped by a custom-made machine. The tickets to different destinations and of different types were stored in a lockable cupboard where the lowest remaining number of each issue was visible. Different colours and patterns helped distinguish the different types of tickets.
British Rail's centralised paper and printing centre at Crewe had a number of pre-1900 Waterlowprinting presses which met its annual demand for 320 million tickets.[3] The last press was switched off in 1988[3] and the use of Edmondson tickets by British Rail completely ceased in February 1990 after being replaced by the standard APTIS orange card tickets.[1]
Vertical-format Edmondson card-size tickets were the final manifestation of the Edmondson in the UK. The NCR21 system was used at Southern Region station booking offices from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, until supplanted by the early generation of computerised systems including INTIS and APTIS. Vertical-format Edmondsons were validated in NCR21 cash registers, which is the machine printed date/fare/machine number on the ticket front. Some NCR24 machines were later bought from Dutch Railways for use on the Southern and these were distinguishable from NCR21 because the machine data, in a slightly different format, appeared upside down on tickets.
To interest collectors, even the smaller stations would carry pre-printed ticket stock for single and return, adult and child journeys to numerous local stations and London, with "blank" stock also available for use for journeys for which no printed stock was available.
Use of Edmondson tickets issued by British Rail declined during the 1980s as computerised systems superseded them. After APTIS was launched in 1986,[4] NCR21-equipped stations were converted to the new technology, concluding in June 1989 with the removal of Edmondson tickets from Emerson Park railway station.[4][5]
A sale of special "last day of issue" commemorative Edmondson tickets was commissioned. The sum of some £500 was raised for Great Ormond Street Hospital as the result of the sale of last-day commemorative tickets.
The Edmondson system is still in use on many heritage railways in the UK. For example, the Severn Valley Railway, the West Somerset Railway, the Bluebell Railway, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway and the Swanage Railway print Edmondson tickets for their own use as well as for a number of other heritage lines. In Sussex the Bluebell Railway has a number of Edmondson printing machines that are to be placed on display in a specially-built museum at the front of Sheffield Park station. There are several small companies that still produce Edmondson tickets on request.
Half fares
Typically, half-fare single tickets (e.g., for children, dogs, and bicycles) would be created by cutting the ticket in half vertically; half-fare return tickets by having a diagonal cut across the ticket, having the value of half the adult fare. The remaining part was placed in a groove in the lid of the ticket rack above its tube. It could then be used as another child ticket, or counted as a credit.
Rear of ticket
The reverse side of a ticket might be endorsed, "Subject to rules and regulations of the issuing railway company". In Poland alternative (less popular) destinations were printed there (e.g., "albo [Polish for 'or'] Lucynów, albo Mienia" for a ticket from Warsaw to a then-popular summer vacation village, Urle).
Use in other countries
The Edmondson system was widely used in European countries such as Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Romania, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy (until mid 1995), the Soviet Union, Norway, Poland, and Switzerland, and outside Europe, for example in Australia and Argentina. The use of Edmondson tickets ceased in most countries in the 1980s or 1990s.
In Switzerland, Edmondson tickets were issued until December 2007 at some stations, especially of the RhB.[6] Edmondson tickets are still printed and distributed (also via internet order) by Druckerei Aeschbacher in Worb (Bern/Switzerland).[7]
While they are no longer used on main-line railways in Australia, Edmondson tickets are still issued by some heritage and tourist railways including Pichi Richi Railway in Quorn, South Australia for their scheduled services and special events.
Pichi Richi Railway tickets
In Canada, Edmondson tickets were used on Toronto-area GO Train service from service inception in 1967 until 1989.
In Czechoslovakia there were two printing houses that printed Edmondson tickets, the first at Prague from 1898 until 1999, the second at Vrútky, both part of the state transportation publishing house NADAS, since privatized as NADAS AFGH s. r. o. (Ltd.). In 1993 Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the state railway company ČSD was divided into České dráhy (ČD) and Železnice Slovenskej republiky (ŽSR). The Prague printing house produced 50,000 tickets per day until start of decrement[clarification needed].[8] Since 1999 ČD stopped ordering these tickets and production stopped. In 1999, the new private narrow-gauge railway company Jindřichohradecké místní dráhy (JHMD, Local Railways of Jindřichův Hradec surroundings) bought the machine accessories from Prague and since 2000 it has run its own printing house at Kamenice nad Lipou, for its own use and for nostalgic trips on ČD and a number of museum railways. JHMD has one of two extant Goebl printing machines from 1895 in the world, together with four newer machines.[8] In the eighties, at ten of the biggest railway stations in Czechoslovakia special mechanical printing machines were used, which printed tickets in Edmondson's format.
They are still used in Paraguay by the Ferrocarril Presidente Don Carlos Antonio Lopez, now Ferrocarriles del Paraguay SA (2011).
The government-owned Sri Lanka Railways uses second-hand machines purchased from the Netherlands to print their tickets.
In Japan most local railway tickets keep the Edmondson format. These are modern magnetic back tickets issued by vending machines, punched by automatic station entry gates and collected at the exit gates. In some rural stations hand-punching by railway employees is still done.
Due to the Japanese occupation of Korea, South Korea used to use the Edmondson tickets for certain types of trains until the introduction of computer in ticket issuing. In some local lines and lower-grade trains, Edmondson format was used even after the computerisation for a while before magnetic stripped card-shape tickets became in use. The ticket was usually hand-punched by employees at the boarding gate, which now replaced by Trust system process.
The Edmondson tickets have been discontinued on Indian Railways but are still used sparingly and continue on heritage railways in India like the Nilgiri Mountain Railway.
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
An electronic ticket is a method of ticket entry, processing, and marketing for companies in the airline, railways and other transport and entertainment industries.
Bat & Ball railway station is on Bat & Ball Road in the suburban town of Sevenoaks in Kent, England. The station is managed by Southeastern although all trains that serve the station are Thameslink. It is 25 miles 51 chains (41.3 km) from London Victoria, although all northbound trains run to London Blackfriars.
Brampton (Cumbria) is a railway station on the Tyne Valley Line, which runs between Newcastle and Carlisle via Hexham. The station, situated 10 miles 62 chains (10.8 mi; 17.3 km) east of Carlisle, serves the hamlet of Milton and the town of Brampton, Cumberland in Cumbria, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
Welham Green railway station serves the village of Welham Green in Hertfordshire, England. It is 15 miles 50 chains (25.1 km) measured from King's Cross on the East Coast Main Line.
The National Location Code (NLC) is a four-digit number allocated to every railway station and ticket issuing point in Great Britain for use with the ticketing system on the British railway network. They are used in the issue of tickets and for accounting purposes. They are a subset of the NLCs created by British Rail, which are based on four "main" digits plus two supplementary digits.
The Shere SMART is a desktop-based railway ticket issuing system, developed by the Guildford-based company Shere Ltd, utilising Newbury Data ND4020 ticket printer, first introduced in Britain in 2003. Since the first trial installation of the system in the ticket office at London Bridge station, approximately 300 terminals have been installed at stations on the Southern and former Thameslink networks.
Tickets issued from British Rail's APTIS system had a considerable amount of detail, presented in a consistent, standard format. The design for all tickets was created by Colin Goodall. This format has formed the basis for all subsequent ticket issuing systems introduced on the railway network – ticket-office based, self-service and conductor-operated machines alike.
In the ticketing system of the British rail network, tickets are normally issued to and from individual stations. In some instances, when there is more than one station in a town or other locality—especially where these are on different routes—it may be desirable for passengers to be able to travel to one station and back from another, or more generally to be able to choose which of the stations they wish to travel to. To accommodate this requirement, British Rail introduced a series of station groups: notional "common locations" to which tickets from stations outside that group would be issued.
In addition to the large number and variety of short-term or localised promotional fares that have been available to passengers on the British railway network in recent decades, there are many permanent concessionary fare schemes available to passengers. Some of these take the form of Railcards, which can be purchased by people who qualify according to the conditions, and which give discounts for all journeys over a period; other concessions are available for individual journeys. In all cases, details of the type of concession will be printed on the passenger's travel ticket, to distinguish reduced-rate tickets from those sold at the standard full fare.
Ascom B8050, usually known by the name QuickFare, is an early example of a passenger-operated railway ticket issuing system, consisting of a series of broadly identical machines installed at British railway stations from 1989 onwards. The machines allow passengers to buy the most popular types of ticket themselves, without having to go to a booking office, and are therefore useful at unstaffed, partly staffed or busy stations. All QuickFare machines have been replaced by more modern technology.
The Scheidt & Bachmann Ticket XPress system is a passenger-operated self-service railway ticket issuing system developed and manufactured by the German systems development and production group Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, based in the city of Mönchengladbach. Since the first trial installations in 2003, seven train operating companies (TOCs) in Great Britain have adopted the system as their main passenger-operated ticket vending method, while four others have installed machines at certain stations on their networks. More than 1,500 machines are in place across the country, and more than 850 stations have one or more. Machines can accept cash and/or payment cards and can sell most National Rail tickets.
The 16–25 Railcard is an annual card giving discounts on certain types of railway ticket in Britain. It is available to anybody aged between 16 and 25 (inclusive), and certain mature students aged 26 and above, and is currently priced at £30.00. There is no restriction on the number of times the Railcard can be used to purchase discounted tickets during the period of its validity, and there are no geographical restrictions on its use.
Avantix Mobile ("AVB") is a portable railway ticket issuing system used across the British railway network from 2001 to 2017.
APTIS was the Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System used on the British Rail/National Rail network until 2007. It was originally called "Advanced Passenger Ticket Issuing System" as it was being developed at the time of the Advanced Passenger Train.
Thomas Edmondson was the inventor of the Edmondson railway ticket.
The Senior Railcard is an annual card available to people aged 60 and over, which gives discounts on certain types of railway ticket in Britain. The Railcard has existed in various forms since 1975; the current version is priced at £30.00 and is valid for one year, with a 3-year card available for £70. It is one of a wide variety of discounted and concessionary fare schemes available on Britain's railway network.
The Family and Friends Railcard is an annual rail travel discount card for use in Great Britain by adults travelling with at least one child. Cards valid for either one or three years can be purchased at a cost of £30 for one year or £70 for three. It is one of the discounted and concessionary fare schemes available on Britain's railway network to people who either belong to particular groups or who are willing to buy tickets ahead of the date of travel. Before 18 May 2008 it was known as the Family Railcard, but the name was changed to reflect the fact that discounted travel is not restricted to adults and children who are related.
Meadowbank Stadium railway station was opened on 14 June 1986 by British Rail next to Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh to allow spectators to travel to the 1986 Commonwealth Games that were being held at the stadium. A shuttle service ran from Edinburgh Waverley: at most times this consisted of a single train running at 20–30 minute intervals, but at times of high demand a second train was used and frequencies were higher. These operated from platforms 20 and 21 at Edinburgh Waverley, and a temporary ticket office nearby was the only outlet at which tickets could be bought. Special pre-printed Edmondson tickets were issued at a flat fare of £0.50.
In 2014, a new design was introduced for train tickets issued on the National Rail network in Great Britain. The pre-2014 design was similar to the APTIS design introduced in 1986 by British Rail.
References
1 2 3 4 Farr, M (1997). "Edmondson, Thomas". In: Simmonds and Biddle (1997), Page 141
Davis, Matthew (2013). The Future's Green and Orange: Exploring and Explaining Ticketing in the Privatised Rail Industry. Bishops Stortford: The Transport Ticket Society. ISBN978-0-903209-75-5.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Farr, Michael (1991). Thomas Edmondson and his Tickets. Andover: Author. ISBN978-0-905033-13-6.
Simmonds, Jack; Biddle, Gordon, eds. (1997). The Oxford Companion to British Railway History: From 1603 to the 1990s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-211697-5.
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