Edmonson tickets a lost "cause" for ever?

We give all our visitors to the St Albans South signal box an Edmundson card ticket as a souvenir - even if we don't have a train ride they can use it on!

I'm not involved with getting the tickets but I understand there are two or three specialist suppliers still about they can be bought from.

 

I believe the computerised all singing and all dancing booking system at KESR is only at Tenterden.

The "lesser" stations still use the traditional card tickets.

I was told that at Tenterden, if you ask, you can be given a "proper" ticket as a souvenir "in addition to" the computerised version. I presume this option will be only for as long as the printed stock lasts.

 

I think the key word is "stereotype". My pet hate on preserved railways is stereotypical displays of fake "luggage" on stationary platform barrows. A lot of stations had lines of these barrows, normally empty and rarely, if ever, left standing around laden.

Use of Edmonson tickets is not similarly bogus; I just wonder if they really will mean anything to people born in this century.

 

Still in use on the West Somerset Railway, which has printed tickets for other railways too....
http://www.wsr.org.uk/ticket.htm

David

 

I'm 23 and hate non-Edmonson tickets on heritage railways, it's all part of the experience!

It's a little patronising to assume that those enthusiasts who are younger then the average train buff wont or don't appreciate the traditional ways of doing something like Edmonson tickets! If an Edmonson ticket would mean nothing, then why would they be visiting a steam railway!? It's all part of the experience. Might as well have steam outline diesels and EPOS receipts if that is the case!

 

Add The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway as using Edmonson tickets at Midsomer Norton:violin:

 

It's all a slippery slope really, once you do away with Edmonson tickets, how many more steps is it before you give up running steam engines because they are worn out and difficult to maintain. What's the point in having a period station (with or without the inevitable dusty and unmoving luggage) if you don't give your passengers proper tickets? Why not demolish it because it is "too expensive to repair" and issue your computer printouts in a portakabin? Visiters can buy a guide book, take photos, buy other modern material in the shops, but the card ticket is the one and only genuine piece of that past (even if it was printed at the WSR last month!) from their visit to a steam railway that they can take away with them.

Thanks for the warning about the KESR, I used to be a member, and frankly would expect better from them. Haven't been for a few years, but my next visit I will start from Northiam if that's where I have to go to get a proper ticket.

 

Edmonson tickets are still available at Swanage on request

 

When the ELR first started, they used to sell old Greater Manchester Transport style square yellow bus tickets, typewriter ribbon style, from old Almex machines... whilst not Edmondsons, these were portable pieces of history in themselves !!!

I dont know what they use on board the train today.

 

Oh dear, where do we start! There is nothing wrong with Edmonson tickets as such and if they can be afforded that is fine. Modern ticketting systems facilitate financial control and anything that reduces administrative costs means more resources can be devoted to the old buildings and steam propulsion so dear to the heart of Man of Kent (and myself).

Individually these savings are relatively insignificant but a future generation which asks accusingly "why did you not buy new boilers and new rail" will not be impressed to learn that everyone was so obsessed with ticketting minutiae and such as to ignore the bigger issues.

P.H.

 

The tickets themselves look great, and are a part of history that it would be great to preserve and continue using. However, the Edmondson ticket system is open to fraud; in fact there have been some accounts of how this is done published! Accountants (some, at least) dislike them because of this. The computerised systems allow less opportunity for fraudulent activities (I'm not naiive enough to state they completely remove it as I am sure there are ways around it that someone will find eventually, but it is a vast improvement).

We took the decision based on these grounds as well the desire to implement gift aid effectively. The computerised system has achieved this VERY well. Much better than other options that continued to use the paper method alongside the Edmondsons.

However you choose to interpret it, ticket sales increased, gift aid take up is very high and no-one has yet complained about our tickets (they are not just receipts on paper in our case) to me or anyone else I know of.

This allows more money to develop the Railway further and safeguard it for future generations.

 

I am sad to see the reduction in use of Edmonson tickets at our preserved lines, as I feel it is an important part of the 'nostalgic experience' that we are selling. Maybe in a few years they'll make a comeback as nostalgia for them in the preservation era increases! However I accept that if it costs a disproportionate amount to use them rather than a till-receipt system, then I agree that the money could be better used elsewhere. The benefits for stock taking, etc are also clear.

It makes you wonder if it is possible to come up with a computerised system that prints a 'heritage style' ticket out onto thin card rather than till-roll? Would also be more robust, especially on gala days or rover tickets which take quite a bashing during the course of the day.

 

The FR booking office at Porth issues electronic tickets which are heritage; on continuous paper from a good-old dot matrix printer. I prefer them to the casio ones you get on the trains, but then the FR/WHR network is a probably now a bit too busy and complex for the guard to work out everything in his head! (Although I'm happy for an FR guard to correct me on this.)

 

You can make the printout from a concert/sporting event style computerized printer look like whatever you want, you just have to pay for the right design stock to be made for you to print the specific details (ie fare paid, date, class, train, etc) to it. It wouldn't be that hard, what i don't know is how expensive it would be, though if a number of heritage lines pooled resources to get the general ticket format design done along with any necessary customization of the printing software, if the design was done with interchangeable parts like line logo and name being changed, I'm sure an economy of scale could be reached where it would make financial sense.

The example i found below is Cinema Style tear offs, thin, but customizible:


A better option IMO is sporting/theatre/concert style ones that are generally in North America at least on a thin card stock, suitable for saving if people wanted


Personally, my two cents is that if i looked in the right drawer at my parents house, i can probably find Edmonson tickets or similar from my first ever Steam Train ride at Bo'ness in the 1980's, safely packed away with treasured keepsakes. Even for me, in my visits to the UK, getting a cash register receipt as my ticket is a bit of a disappointment as a keepsake. A good alternate compromise to better designed modern tickets would be using a computerized sales system, but giving a Edmonson Ticket as a souvenir to go with the official receipt, at least to children and any adults who requested it.

 

Our tickets are designed to be reasonably in keeping with simialr style to Edmondsons, on thin card, but a bit larger. The details are printed on in the same style as they would be, and we think it's a reasonable compromise.

 

Swanage railway today was giving out concert style tickets at Swanage, and loo roll style (Long white and tear offs) on the train. :-(

 

fine! but I have visited very recently the Llangolen rly and I have recieved an horredeous bus ticket style whic h

 

regards
noel

 

I don't recall any of the heritage railways quoting the use of Edmonson tickets as part of advertising their heritage train service. Perhaps the more astute ones with attention to detail will recognise the USP in this & use the fact to help sell the whole experience which they offer? Nothing in that prevents using modern ways of accounting for cash & producing receipts and Edmonson stocks should be capable of reconciliation against properly designed accounting software if fraud/theft is suspected.