Early Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs)

[Dai Corner]

I've started this thread to save the one this post is from going too off-topic

Original thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ticket-vending-machine-tvm-ideas.226889/page-2

Actually, QuickFare machines did have the facility to offer off peak fares (such as "cheap day return" as was). They didn't have separate buttons, though; the machine simply changed over to the lower fare when the last peak train left. They also sold season tickets.

Of course if you didn't want one of the destinations the machine had, then you had to resort to a booking office or train guard. Wikipedia notes that Portslade station (between Brighton and Shoreham) had a machine that offered Wimbledon but not Fishersgate, the next station down the line.

The first machines I remember were on the Underground and offered one fare each in return for the exact payment in coins. They had a list of the stations to which that fare was valid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I recall that the one at Manchester Oxford Road offered Ormskirk but not Aughton Park. Perhaps surprising it offered either!

Back then of course there were no PFs on Merseyrail and prosecutions were only for the most serious cases, so if travelling via Preston you could quite happily use an Ormskirk ticket with nobody questioning you as the fare was the same and it was valid both ways.

Cash only, though. My Dad has used credit cards for far longer than most (as he was a bank manager) and encouraged me to do the same (settling each month), so I mostly went to the booking office.

 

[MotCO]

I've started this thread to save the one this post is from going too off-topic

Original thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ticket-vending-machine-tvm-ideas.226889/page-2


The first machines I remember were on the Underground and offered one fare each in return for the exact payment in coins. They had a list of the stations to which that fare was valid.

They were the ones I was thinking about when reading the other thread. There were banks of machines - blue cabinets with a sloping illuminated top, with a large '3d' or '6d' or even '1/-' shown on the illuminated panel,, and on the background, as you say, a list of all the stations for which that ticket was valid. No zones back then!

 

[Bletchleyite]

They were the ones I was thinking about when reading the other thread. There were banks of machines - blue cabinets with a sloping illuminated top, with a large '3d' or '6d' or even '1/-' shown on the illuminated panel,, and on the background, as you say, a list of all the stations for which that ticket was valid. No zones back then!

I recall the huge Tube ones which had a button for every station on the system!