Edmonson tickets a lost "cause" for ever?

As a minor contribution to this debate I offer snaps of my tickets from the Bluebell opening to East Grinstead and of the GWSR to Broadway.

You can see which one I chose to have framed. (T’was a bit of a special number, mind.)

Not providing ‘proper’ Edmonton card tickets at a heritage railway is a clear ‘fail’ in my mind.

Robin

 

Fully agree Robin. It is really the only thing I can fault Swanage for they use those awful tickets, which it appears may be from the same software system that GWSR use.

 

Visited GWSR a couple of weeks ago and both me and my dog were issued with Edmonsons at Cheltenham Racecourse station.

 

Certainly not before Gift Aid for Charities gets withdrawn or online booking falls out of favour (which it won't

 

I got an early one last night (feeling ropey - cue the violins!), so my last NP 'trawl' of the day was at about 22:30. Imagine my surprise when I signed in 20mins ago and there were three more pages on cardboard tickets.

Permit me to summarise what I've learned:
Quite a few folk have strong feelings about tickets

....... that's it.

The great livery debate really needs to look to it's laurels.

 

it's really odd isn't it. Superb stations, authentic locos and even a couple of Bulleid coaches in service and yet they spoil it for a happorth of tar. One of my favourite railways.

(and off topic , another one that spoils the experience for me is the use of those lollypops instead of a green flag.

 

Tbf, I think the phrase ‘could start an argument in an empty room’ could go on almost every rail enthusiast’s gravestone.

 

I’ve heard all these arguments before. It’s perfectly possible to capture all the necessary data and still include the heritage experience of buying and having an Edmondson ticket stamped and then clipped on the train. Not to do so is just , with respect, excuses, excuses.

Robin

 

Why will coach parties (pre-booked) not have individual tickets. The station master and booking clerk should both know to expect them, a bundle of the correct number of tickets can be handed to the courier or driver of the coach for distribution within their party.

 

The lollypops creep in at stations, for, frankly, no good reason. I’m not aware of guards using them instead of flags to start a train with anywhere?

Or am I wrong?

Robin

 

To be honest I'm more disturbed by the racial profiling on the GWSR's ticket!

Edit: I've just clocked that this is presumably your surname. Ah well, it was funny while it lasted.

 

Even on busy platforms I've had no problems looking for the right arm being waved in the air, even on platforms curved the wrong way on a gala day.

 

As a former BR person I remember the dark blue free staff tickets. For employees they were replaced by the PTAC with dateable boxes, still in use for those of us with "grandfather rights" to free and privilege travel. I think the last Edmondson style pasteboard ticket I used for a journey on the national network was for a charter train, the organiser was responsible for distributing these to his passengers as otherwise they would not have got past the barrier to board their train.

 

Tickets have a place but its in a museum. They are not an obsession shared by every enthusiast, just as railways are not an obsession shared by every member of the public. @30854 is quite right in his comparison with the livery frothings.

PH

 

I remember Edmondson tickets being used in Brisbane as a child - so that was the 1980's for me. They were then replaced with thin printed paper tickets which, while not as tactile, when ripped to correct size and then tightly rolled into a ball, did make excellent ammunition for a hollowed out biro!

Wiki's Edmonson ticket entry has some interesting tidbits. I like the mention of the Puffing Billy Railway being the main provider of tickets to heritage railways in Australia, as well as to the Talylln Railway!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmondson_railway_ticket

 

station staff at Highley

 

Flags have a place but its in a museum. They are not an obsession shared by every enthusiast, just as railways are not an obsession shared by every member of the public.

TJ

 

Railway clocks have a place but it's in a museum. They are not an obsession shared by every enthusiast, just as railways are not an obsession by every member of the public.

Steam locomotives have a place but it's in a museum. They are not an obsession shared by every enthusiast, just as railways are not an obsession by every member of the public.

Am I getting the hang of it yet?

 

This is foolishness of the first water.

If we slice away bits of the ‘old’ railway that we find inconvenient, what is there left?

Let’s run a DMU from a concrete windswept platform with staff dressed in jeans and a logo-emblazoned windcheater and call it ‘heritage’ because the uninformed don’t know any different.

Shall we?

Anyway, I thought the IoWR WAS a museum? That’s why I visit every September when I am on the island for the Newport/Ryde Classic Car show.

Paah!

Robin

 

Best laugh of the thread. You have complained that heritage railways do not take their museum aspect seriously enough but when they keep Edmonsons, by your own admission museum pieces and therefore part of a railway's museum function, you dismiss them.