Edmondson Ticket Dating

[RDowse]

Hi All,

I've recently started a small collection of Edmondson tickets, but I'm getting a bit confused about the branding and dating on them and wondered if there were any experts on here that might be able to help? (apologies in advance, some of these questions may turn out to be a bit stupid)

For example, I have a ticket from Malvern Wells to Great Malvern dated 24 Jan 64. It's branded as Great Western Railways. Can I assume that this is from 1864 since GWR has been nationalised by 1964 or were tickets still printed with big 4 branding even in the BR age? Per Wikipedia the station was closed between 19 Jan 1861 and 1 Feb 1864 which suggests it can't be 1864?

I also have a ticket from Great Malvern to Ashchurch which is dated 29 November 52 (post nationalisation), but is branded LM&SR, so I'm confused. It obviously can't be 1852 since LMS didn't exist.

Is what I'm assuming to be a year not actually a year??

Any help much appreciated.

 

[30907]

Hi All,

I've recently started a small collection of Edmondson tickets, but I'm getting a bit confused about the branding and dating on them and wondered if there were any experts on here that might be able to help? (apologies in advance, some of these questions may turn out to be a bit stupid)

For example, I have a ticket from Malvern Wells to Great Malvern dated 24 Jan 64. It's branded as Great Western Railways. Can I assume that this is from 1864 since GWR has been nationalised by 1964 or were tickets still printed with big 4 branding even in the BR age? Per Wikipedia the station was closed between 19 Jan 1861 and 1 Feb 1864 which suggests it can't be 1864?

I also have a ticket from Great Malvern to Ashchurch which is dated 29 November 52 (post nationalisation), but is branded LM&SR, so I'm confused. It obviously can't be 1852 since LMS didn't exist.

Is what I'm assuming to be a year not actually a year??

Any help much appreciated.

Yes, 64 or 52 is the year. Pre- nationalisation ticket stock was still widely in use at that time, especially for less popular journeys.

 

[Taunton]

There were plenty of pre-nationalisation tickets for oddball journeys still around. They were not thrown away when the ownership changed so were only reprinted when used up, to the end of the Edmondson era.

John Betjeman wrote of taking a journey in the 1950s nationalised era on the North London DC line between two less-used stations and finding the ticket was still headed LNWR.

 

[Welshman]

There were plenty of pre-nationalisation tickets for oddball journeys still around. They were not thrown away when the ownership changed so were only reprinted when used up, to the end of the Edmondson era.

John Betjeman wrote of taking a journey in the 1950s nationalised era on the North London DC line between two less-used stations and finding the ticket was still headed LNWR.

I recently bought a ticket from Rhyl to London Euston which said "Avanti West Coast" and underneath "Virgin trains only"
Nothing changes!

 

[RDowse]

Thanks for confirming.

 

[Foxcote]

Tickets being issued by BR which had been printed by LMS, GWR, SR etc. and even pre-grouping companies was very common. It was because the printers at the time would be instructed to initially supply hundreds, or even thousands of the requested type. Travel patterns changing over the years could leave stations with large stocks of little used tickets. All that could be done was to keep issuing them when requested and correct the old printed fare in ink to the current fare.

BR days were little better, as when it was noticed by HQ that six blank tickets had been issued to one destination, an order was placed automatically by them usually for 200 printed tickets.

To elaborate, blank tickets showEd the issuing station name only and the destination has to be written in ink at time of issue and recorded. The possibility of fraud is obvious; write in name of station a long distance away with correct fare, then record as a nearby station. Pocket the difference. This fraud could be discovered by the ticket being collected,sent to area office and checked with issuing station records. But collection of ticket could easily be avoided. Modern tickets now make this fraud impossible, but other frauds have replaced it.

 

[Gwenllian2001]

Tickets being issued by BR which had been printed by LMS, GWR, SR etc. and even pre-grouping companies was very common. It was because the printers at the time would be instructed to initially supply hundreds, or even thousands of the requested type. Travel patterns changing over the years could leave stations with large stocks of little used tickets. All that could be done was to keep issuing them when requested and correct the old printed fare in ink to the current fare.

BR days were little better, as when it was noticed by HQ that six blank tickets had been issued to one destination, an order was placed automatically by them usually for 200 printed tickets.

To elaborate, blank tickets showEd the issuing station name only and the destination has to be written in ink at time of issue and recorded. The possibility of fraud is obvious; write in name of station a long distance away with correct fare, then record as a nearby station. Pocket the difference. This fraud could be discovered by the ticket being collected,sent to area office and checked with issuing station records. But collection of ticket could easily be avoided. Modern tickets now make this fraud impossible, but other frauds have replaced it.

Ex XS

 

[Gwenllian2001]

In my day printed stock had to be ordered, from Reading, when it was deemed necessary. The Chief Clerk was supposed to keep an eye on the number of blank cards being issued to a given station and order printed stock as required. I once ordered printed stock for eleven different destinations where blank cards had been regularly used for quite some time. Shall we say that things had become a little slack!

 

[John Webb]

We still issue Edmondson tickets to our visitors at the St Albans South box. They are printed for us by one of the preserved railways. They are sequentially numbered (so we know how many visitors we get) and we usually order a couple of thousand at a time. We don't currently have a date stamp to make their issue more authentic, alas!

 

[Bedpan]

I assume that in the normal course of events collected tickets would just be thrown away, Or did they send the handwritten ones back to the area office as a matter of course? I would have thought that recording the sale as a nearer station would be risky as the ticket clerk would have no control over whether or not the passenger he issued it to handed it in.

 

[contrex]

... blank tickets showed the issuing station name only and the destination has to be written in ink at time of issue and recorded.

When I was 12 I fancied going from Brixton to Tulse Hill by an odd route, so I clambered up to East Brixton's "booking office" which was the stationman's booth on the Victoria-bound platform, and asked for a single to Tulse Hill. The chap looked it up in a book and got a blank ticket, on which wrote "TULLS HILL" as the destination. I had to go back down to the street and up the stairs to the London Bridge platform to get a green 2EPB to Peckham Rye. Nothing got recorded, that I could see, and, in fact, I kept the ticket. I don't think he would have got rich; that station was very lightly used.

 

[contrex]

I assume that in the normal course of events collected tickets would just be thrown away.

Kept and sent to Head Office for counting and recording. Numerous reasons including deterrence of fraud.

 

[PeterC]

There were plenty of pre-nationalisation tickets for oddball journeys still around. They were not thrown away when the ownership changed so were only reprinted when used up, to the end of the Edmondson era.

John Betjeman wrote of taking a journey in the 1950s nationalised era on the North London DC line between two less-used stations and finding the ticket was still headed LNWR.

I certainly had a 3rd class LNER ticket issued in the mid 1960s. I went for an RAF interview at Biggin Hill and received it in exchange for a travel warrent. IIRC it was a special ticket for forces use. Sadly it was collected at the end of the journey.

 

[Midnight Sun]

Edmondson tickets are still printed at the Swanage Railway for other railways. The printer is in the Corfe Castle Goods shed and can be seen in use. Yet the railway stopped using them more than 10 years ago.

 

[6Gman]

Kept and sent to Head Office for counting and recording. Numerous reasons including deterrence of fraud.

At my school there was a short-lived (and pretty limited) enthusiasm for collecting railway tickets.

It was fuelled when one or two lads (not me, no, no, never me … honest) discovered that those leather pouches sometimes seen on platform trolleys addressed "to Audit, Derby" contained tickets by the dozen . . . or hundreds.

 

[davetheguard]

Perhaps stating the obvious, but tickets weren't pre-printed with a date on them; they were only dated by the clerk as they were actually issued, using his date stamp. Thus, sometimes tickets printed pre-nationalisation, could be sold, issued, & dated after nationalisation.

 

[Welshman]

Kept and sent to Head Office for counting and recording. Numerous reasons including deterrence of fraud.

I was friendly with the ticket-collectors at Halifax in the early 1960s.
As tickets were collected, they were cancelled with a special clipper which removed the originating stations' punch and then stored in racks, depending on their station of origin and type, ie singles, outward halves, return halves, 1st class, etc etc.
It was then the duty of the early man the following morning to tie-up the tickets from the racks into blocks, which were then sent to Newcastle by the next trains for audit, usually wrapped in the previous day's newspaper!

 

[edwin_m]

In the late 70s and 80s, before the ubiquitous credit card format, a lot of stations issued cardboard tickets about 5cm wide by 15cm tall, usually red and white but I recall a brown and white one too. I think I'm right in saying that except for really obscure journeys, these were pre-printed with the destination but the origin was stamped on, and this struck me as inefficient as they needed dozens or hundreds of different blanks at each station. But no doubt another protection against fraud, as a corrupt clerk would have to exchange stock with a colleague some distance away to be able to make any money.

From somewhat earlier I remember a machine at Manchester Piccadilly a bit like an overgrown jukebox, where the clerk would push a slider along and up so a particular ticket type was displayed in a window, then I think it would stamp a blank accordingly (excuse fuzzy recollection, I would have been about 7 at the time). Despite these presumably dating only from the rebuild of the station in the 60s, I've an idea they still issued Edmonsons.

 

[RT4038]

In the late 70s and 80s, before the ubiquitous credit card format, a lot of stations issued cardboard tickets about 5cm wide by 15cm tall, usually red and white but I recall a brown and white one too. I think I'm right in saying that except for really obscure journeys, these were pre-printed with the destination but the origin was stamped on, and this struck me as inefficient as they needed dozens or hundreds of different blanks at each station. But no doubt another protection against fraud, as a corrupt clerk would have to exchange stock with a colleague some distance away to be able to make any money.

From somewhat earlier I remember a machine at Manchester Piccadilly a bit like an overgrown jukebox, where the clerk would push a slider along and up so a particular ticket type was displayed in a window, then I think it would stamp a blank accordingly (excuse fuzzy recollection, I would have been about 7 at the time). Despite these presumably dating only from the rebuild of the station in the 60s, I've an idea they still issued Edmonsons.

These red and white tickets were put into a cash register type machine, which stamped the ticket type [single, return etc] price and originating station name on.

The second type of machine you refer to was called a Multi-printer. It was a German machine and printed Origin and Destination details and price from a printing plate onto an Edmonson card ticket, the correct colour ticket type being inserted by the clerk. Main drawback to this machine was at fares increases, where all the plates had to be changed on one night.

 

[cav1975]

I don't have pictures of the dated side of these two Southern Railway tickets, but they were issued (presumably to a souvenir hunter) on 11th May 1968 more than 20 years after the demise of the SR

 

[PeterC]

I don't have pictures of the dated side of these two Southern Railway tickets, but they were issued (presumably to a souvenir hunter) on 11th May 1968 more than 20 years after the demise of the SRView attachment 76751View attachment 76752

Quite possibly issued to a traveller. I posted above that LNER forces tickets were still being issued in exchange for travel warrents at that time.

 

[Bald Rick]

I saw the title of this thread and genuinely thought it might link to a very niche hobby section of Tinder!

 

[cav1975]

Quite possibly issued to a traveller. I posted above that LNER forces tickets were still being issued in exchange for travel warrents at that time.

These tickets are in the archive collection at the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. Given the provenance which I am aware of) it is 90% certain that they were issued to an enthusiast and not for actual use.