Collecting tickets

[DeeGee]

Since he was a little boy, I've been giving my son my used train tickets from my various sojourns to marathons around the country. He's been putting them in the box where his toy trains are.

He's just turned five and recently he announced that it was his "train ticket collection" - he's amassed them in a ziplok bag. They're still just a massive pile of old tickets, though.

It's always struck me that there needs to be some kind of 'system' to a collection, so I'm assuming there are folk on here who collect train tickets. I'm guessing that you wouldn't just chuck them in a box, so what do you do with them? Do you display them? How do you organise them?

I've got shedloads more on my desk at work and I'm more than happy to bring them home and collect others if he's going to make it into a worthwhile hobby.

 

[steamybrian]

I started collecting railway tickets in 1961 and have a collection which I estimate into many thousands.
Mine are divided into many sections but they are filed into station of origin (issuing station) alphabetical order.
Platform tickets
Closed stations
Open stations
Railtours
Companies- GWR, LMS, LNER,SR or pregrouping companies.

When I was younger it helped me learning geography in finding where these stations were situated.

 

[Simon11]

I don't really collect tickets, however I have saved a few 'special' tickets. While they are only a few months old, there are the first tickets printed of several different new products recently introduced.

 

[Hassocks5489]

I've collected modern British railway tickets for more than 25 years, and started at only a slightly older age. I know many other collectors, and everybody seems to have a different method of cataloguing their collections! Broadly speaking, mine is like this:

• Point-to-point travel tickets are the main focus. I sort by destination station, then (within that) alphabetically by origin station, then by date.
• I aim to collect at least one from each issuing location (machine/window number).
• Other types of ticket are sorted separately in their general categories. Season Tickets, Platform Tickets, Seat Reservations, One Day Travelcards, PTE tickets outside London, etc etc.
• I keep track of what I have and what I need using spreadsheets and databases.

My main advice would be to keep everything, even if it seems mundane or common at the moment. It is amazing how quickly things change and how certain features can disappear or appear at a moment's notice.

For storage ... admittedly my collection is very large, and consists almost exclusively of credit card-sized tickets: I use a combination of A4 box files and some similarly sized "build them yourself" lidded flat-packed cardboard boxes which I bought from some website. Miscellaneous stuff yet to be sorted gets chucked in ordinary open boxes pending sorting. In relation to modern tickets I would be wary of using ziplok-type or other plastic bags in case it encourages fading. Larger paper tickets go in an assortment of lidded boxes. I find that Edmondson-style tickets fit perfectly in an After Eight box Many collectors mount some or all parts of their collection, but there is much debate about how to do so and what materials to use.

Finally, I would say keep it up! It's an interesting and rewarding hobby, and it has many educational benefits - I can totally agree with Steamybrian's last sentence, for example.

 

[Condor7]

The link below may also be of interest, it is for the Transport Ticket Society, who also publish a monthly journal.
http://www.transport-ticket.org.uk/index.htm