Edmondson railway ticket

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The Edmondson railway ticket was a system for validating the payment of railway fares, and accounting for the revenue raised, introduced in the 1840s.^[1] It is named after its inventor, Thomas Edmondson, a trained cabinet maker, who became a station master on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway in England.^[1] He introduced his system on the Manchester and Leeds Railway.^[1]

The tickets were printed on cards about 1 inches by 2 inch, and were numbered. When the 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 highest 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 Waterloo printing presses which met its 320 million annual demand for Edmondson railway tickets.^[2] The last press was switched off in 1988;^[2] and the use of Edmondson tickets by British Rail ceased in February 1990.^[1]

The system may still be in use on some quiet branch lines, and on heritage railways, but has mostly been superseded on other railway systems.

1 Ticket types
2 Rear of ticket
3 References
4 Further reading

[edit] Ticket types

Include:

single
return
off-peak
periodical
- weekly
- monthly
- yearly
concession
- child
- pensioner
platform ticket
dog ticket

[edit] Rear of ticket

might be endorsed with "Subject to rules and regulations of A, B & C Railway".

The inks used to print Edmondson tickets often fade in sunlight, so care must be taken when users seek to collect these tickets.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Farr, M (1997). " Edmondson, Thomas". In: Simmonds and Biddle, Page 141
^ ^a ^b "BR Ends Edmondson". In: Railway Magazine, Vol. 134, March 1988, Page 148.

[edit] Further reading

Bray, Maurice I., (1986). Railway Tickets, Timetables & Handbills. Ashbourne: Moorland Publishing Co. Ltd. ISBN 0-86190-163-0.
Glover, John (1985). "Mechanisation of ticket issuing". In: Modern Railways, Vol. 42, April 1985, Pages 192-195.

Simmonds, Jack and Biddle, Gordon. (Edrs), (1997). The Oxford Companion to British Railway History: From 1603 to the 1990s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211697-5.