Long-distance tickets in the 1960s

[StephenHunter]

What did railway tickets for long-distance services both in the UK and internationally look like? I don't think Edmondson tickets would cover London to Paris.

It's for a role-play I'm running.

 

[Gloster]

I don’t know if it was still the system in the 1960s, but from reading Freeman Wills Crofts’ books I have an idea what it was in the 1930s. You were issued with a little loose-leaf booklet which contained a coupon for each leg, e.g. London-Dover, Dover-Calais and Calais-Paris. I don’t know if there was a second booklet for the return, a second return portion for each leg in the same booklet or you just retained the ticket. I suspect that, at least on the ferry, you had to surrender your ticket in order to be issued with a landing card.

As said, I don’t know if this was still the system, but it might have been similar, but with machine produced tickets rather than hand-written. It was done this way so that each organisation had a physical ticket that could be counted for their returns.

 

[30907]

I don’t know if it was still the system in the 1960s, but from reading Freeman Wills Crofts’ books I have an idea what it was in the 1930s. You were issued with a little loose-leaf booklet which contained a coupon for each leg, e.g. London-Dover, Dover-Calais and Calais-Paris. I don’t know if there was a second booklet for the return, a second return portion for each leg in the same booklet or you just retained the ticket. I suspect that, at least on the ferry, you had to surrender your ticket in order to be issued with a landing card.

As said, I don’t know if this was still the system, but it might have been similar, but with machine produced tickets rather than hand-written. It was done this way so that each organisation had a physical ticket that could be counted for their returns.

Multiple coupons lasted well beyond the 60s (and not only for staff travel) - and the format (1/3 A4) is still the layout of many mainland tickets. Am I right that airlines did the same?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Wouldn't 'Edmondson' type tickets still have been routinely used for long distance journeys wholly within Great Britain in the 1960s

 

[Gloster]

Two more thoughts:

It is quite possible that the various individual tickets for a through journey were handed to the passenger loose in a little envelope style wallet, rather than actually being stapled together as a book. This might have been because they were card, rather than paper.

Remember that exchange controls existed for many years so paying for as much as possible, not just tickets, but also hotels, meals, etc., in sterling before you left meant that you had more money to spend on your pleasures. I believe that the controls existed, with varying limits, from 1947 to 1979, except for 1959 to 1966.

 

[Acathater]

What did railway tickets for long-distance services both in the UK and internationally look like? I don't think Edmondson tickets would cover London to Paris.

It's for a role-play I'm running.

In the 1960's wouldn't tickets for international services have been mainly purchased in advance from Pickfords shops?
In the 1970's they were sold as handwritten tear-out pages from a carbon copy duplicate book with flimsy yellow & orange paper. Any idea when that was introduced?

 

[Bodiam]

Wouldn't 'Edmondson' type tickets still have been routinely used for long distance journeys wholly within Great Britain in the 1960s

Yes, and for journeys wholly within many other European countries.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Wouldn't 'Edmondson' type tickets still have been routinely used for long distance journeys wholly within Great Britain in the 1960s

yes, and if not for a frequently used routing then often with the destination written in hand on a 'blank'

 

[Bodiam]

In the 1960's wouldn't tickets for international services have been mainly purchased in advance from Pickfords shops?

I don't know about mainly, but as late as the mid 1970s I can recall going to the Continental booking office on platform 1 at Victoria, buying a ticket and getting straight on a boat train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don’t know if it was still the system in the 1960s, but from reading Freeman Wills Crofts’ books I have an idea what it was in the 1930s. You were issued with a little loose-leaf booklet which contained a coupon for each leg, e.g. London-Dover, Dover-Calais and Calais-Paris. I don’t know if there was a second booklet for the return, a second return portion for each leg in the same booklet or you just retained the ticket. I suspect that, at least on the ferry, you had to surrender your ticket in order to be issued with a landing card.

As said, I don’t know if this was still the system, but it might have been similar, but with machine produced tickets rather than hand-written. It was done this way so that each organisation had a physical ticket that could be counted for their returns.

This was done as late as the early 2000s. When I used one in 1999 I don't think you had to surrender any of the coupons.

 

[The exile]

Multiple coupons lasted well beyond the 60s (and not only for staff travel) - and the format (1/3 A4) is still the layout of many mainland tickets. Am I right that airlines did the same?

Suspect they lasted until the introduction of the huge tickets for the purpose in the 90s (concurrently with Eurostar?)
Agency-issued airline tickets were indeed similar - last one I remember having like that was in December 1988 (for PA103, but that’s another story).

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I don't know about mainly, but as late as the mid 1970s I can recall going to the Continental booking office on platform 1 at Victoria, buying a ticket and getting straight on a boat train.

And well into the 1980s too!

 

[Belperpete]

yes, and if not for a frequently used routing then often with the destination written in hand on a 'blank'

Even for a single destination, there would be a whole range of tickets, single/return, child, off peak, etc. Each station would therefore only have pre-printed tickets for the most commonly used destinations.

How did the accounting work for Edmondsons where the destination was handwritten? With no copy, there would be no record of what had been sold. It would surely be wide open to fraud? I know that tickets were collected at the end of your journey (no keeping them for delay repay in those days!), and sent back for accounting, but there must surely have been large numbers of tickets that never got back.

I can only ever recall being issued paper tickets of various forms, where a pre-printed Edmondson wasn't available, with these the booking office kept a carbon copy for accounting purposes. Either the coupon type, or something squarer about quarter A4 sized.

Staff travel used blue Edmondson tickets, where the origin and destination were handwritten. However, they were free, so didn't need the same rigour of accounting.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

How did the accounting work for Edmondsons where the destination was handwritten? With no copy, there would be no record of what had been sold. It would surely be wide open to fraud? I know that tickets were collected at the end of your journey (no keeping them for delay repay in those days!), and sent back for accounting, but there must surely have been large numbers of tickets that never got back.

There was a form where such issues were recorded, can't remember the exact detail was it submitted daily, weekly, 4 weekly etc. - but it did provide an auditable trail.

 

[Gloster]

There was a form where such issues were recorded, can't remember the exact detail was it submitted daily, weekly, 4 weekly etc. - but it did provide an auditable trail.

I think that there was a certain amount of cross-checking by the audit department. In theory all tickets got back to them and even though many didn’t they could only do random checks. However, the possibility of a check existed and if the department found anomalies they could carry out a very thorough one.

They would check the list of handwritten tickets sold by Much Grumbling (Devon) and if they spotted that returned ticket 0123 had Sunderland as the destination written on it and a price of £5/4/3, but was recorded in the ledger or form as to Little Stumbling (Wiltshire) at 7/6, they would start a very thorough check. Certain types of ticket, such as those against military warrants, were, so I understand, more likely to be checked. This seems to have been roughly the system involved.

 

[WesternLancer]

Would the Transport Ticket Society have info on international tickets in the 1960s?

I expect sales and auctions have examples that pass through which may be seen in catalogues on line.

 

[etr221]

Wouldn't 'Edmondson' type tickets still have been routinely used for long distance journeys wholly within Great Britain in the 1960s

Would this actually have applied to 'British Isles', including Ireland (both parts) as well as GB, as journeys covered by RCH rather than UIC rules (which would have applied for journeys to continental Europe)? Can anybody confirm this? And state when treating journeys to and from Ireland as 'British Isles domestic' rather than International ceased?

Regarding hand written tickets, I don't think the required number for having tickets pre-printed (rather than have to hand write them) was very high (low double figures?). I have heard of relatively insignificant stations, but which served large hospitals that had a fair number of Irish nurses, which had tickets for quite a selection of small Irish towns available, for when they went home.

 

[D6130]

When I was working in the travel centre at Guildford in 1976, I remember issuing return tickets from Guildford to Enniscorthy via Reading, Fishguard and Rosslare to a local Irish family going home for a relative's wedding. By that time all tickets including a ferry crossing had to be written in triplicate on the A6 size orange and yellow paper tickets.

Busier ticket offices not only had a stock of 'Thistown' to 'blank' Edmondson card tickets, but also a fair number of 'blank' to 'blank' tickets for issuing tickets for journeys starting from other stations. All these issues had to be meticulously recorded in the Register of Blank Cards, with date, time, stations from & to and price....as well as being processed through the NCR21 cash register. Also the starting and finishing numbers for each shift had to be entered in the register.

 

[Hassocks5489]

Would the Transport Ticket Society have info on international tickets in the 1960s?

I expect sales and auctions have examples that pass through which may be seen in catalogues on line.

We do! @StephenHunter I can throw the question open to my TTS colleagues if you would like me to (my specialism is tickets of the 1980s and onwards), but I can offer you some example photographs from the collection of a fellow TTS member which I now hold. Broadly speaking, tickets issued with the form numbers BR 4418 and BR 4420 and various suffixes were used for international travel in the 1960s and beyond. Some examples to follow...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 18:56 ==

Purely a random selection from my folder of BR 4418 and BR 4420 tickets. Quite a lot of variety. As I say, I'm happy to send a round-robin to my TTS colleagues to see what more information they can come up with. (Please tag me in any replies as I don't log on very often.)

 

[PeterC]

I have certainly had hand completed Edmonson card tickets. Also, on one occasion, when travellig to Biggin Hill as a air cadet in 1968 I was issued an LNER third class forces ticket.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Not the 1960s, but 1956, when my partner's late mother travelled from Bradford W Yorks to Mayrhofen Austria. A booklet from travel company Inghams, with a loose separate Edmonson-style ticket for the last leg Jenbach-Mayrhofen (scan of front and back). I don't know how she got from Bradford to London.














== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 19:34 ==

And for comparison, a 2016 itinerary for London-Innsbruck, leaving London about the same time as in 1956:

 

[Snow1964]

yes, and if not for a frequently used routing then often with the destination written in hand on a 'blank'

I have one issued at Clapham Junction to Coventry in 1985, hand written destination. It was a half fare (stamped student which was 18-25 then) single.

Was on a weekend evening and the one ticket office clerk was stressed because his record or fares book was in a cupboard and took ages finding the keys, and by time he issued it had about 20-30 people in a queue (no TVMs then).

The ticket collector at Coventry was also surprised to see a handwritten Edmunson ticket, but let me keep it as it was so unusual.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Would this actually have applied to 'British Isles', including Ireland (both parts) as well as GB, as journeys covered by RCH rather than UIC rules (which would have applied for journeys to continental Europe)? Can anybody confirm this? And state when treating journeys to and from Ireland as 'British Isles domestic' rather than International ceased?

Regarding hand written tickets, I don't think the required number for having tickets pre-printed (rather than have to hand write them) was very high (low double figures?). I have heard of relatively insignificant stations, but which served large hospitals that had a fair number of Irish nurses, which had tickets for quite a selection of small Irish towns available, for when they went home.

As I recall, in the '70s the three principal Manchester stations (and Stockport and Bolton) had fares to any station in Ireland (Republic & NI), via various sea routes, thanks to the large Irish community. For the main destinations they were available in the standard, domestic , horrid LMR 'roll printer' machines (where the purple ink always smudged!), otherwise handwritten. If you needed sailing tickets and / or a cabin these were separate documents. CIÉ could also issue tickets (Edmonson) for a wide range of stations in GB.

 

[StephenHunter]

We do! @StephenHunter I can throw the question open to my TTS colleagues if you would like me to (my specialism is tickets of the 1980s and onwards), but I can offer you some example photographs from the collection of a fellow TTS member which I now hold. Broadly speaking, tickets issued with the form numbers BR 4418 and BR 4420 and various suffixes were used for international travel in the 1960s and beyond. Some examples to follow...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 18:56 ==

Purely a random selection from my folder of BR 4418 and BR 4420 tickets. Quite a lot of variety. As I say, I'm happy to send a round-robin to my TTS colleagues to see what more information they can come up with. (Please tag me in any replies as I don't log on very often.)

@Hassocks5489 - Please do. These look very interesting, Thanks for sharing!

@eastwestdivide Thanks for sharing too.

 

[WesternLancer]

We do! @StephenHunter I can throw the question open to my TTS colleagues if you would like me to (my specialism is tickets of the 1980s and onwards), but I can offer you some example photographs from the collection of a fellow TTS member which I now hold. Broadly speaking, tickets issued with the form numbers BR 4418 and BR 4420 and various suffixes were used for international travel in the 1960s and beyond. Some examples to follow...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 18:56 ==

Purely a random selection from my folder of BR 4418 and BR 4420 tickets. Quite a lot of variety. As I say, I'm happy to send a round-robin to my TTS colleagues to see what more information they can come up with. (Please tag me in any replies as I don't log on very often.)

Thanks. Great to see those images. Will study them
More carefully on my pc screen rather than my phone.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 22:13 ==

Not the 1960s, but 1956, when my partner's late mother travelled from Bradford W Yorks to Mayrhofen Austria. A booklet from travel company Inghams, with a loose separate Edmonson-style ticket for the last leg Jenbach-Mayrhofen (scan of front and back). I don't know how she got from Bradford to London.

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== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 19:34 ==

And for comparison, a 2016 itinerary for London-Innsbruck, leaving London about the same time as in 1956:

View attachment 210284

This looks fascinating!

 

[Dr Hoo]

When I was working in the travel centre at Guildford in 1976, I remember issuing return tickets from Guildford to Enniscorthy via Reading, Fishguard and Rosslare to a local Irish family going home for a relative's wedding. By that time all tickets including a ferry crossing had to be written in triplicate on the A6 size orange and yellow paper tickets.

Busier ticket offices not only had a stock of 'Thistown' to 'blank' Edmondson card tickets, but also a fair number of 'blank' to 'blank' tickets for issuing tickets for journeys starting from other stations. All these issues had to be meticulously recorded in the Register of Blank Cards, with date, time, stations from & to and price....as well as being processed through the NCR21 cash register. Also the starting and finishing numbers for each shift had to be entered in the register.

Yes, the advent of the NCR21s was a major step forward in deterring fraud. Even various paper coupons could be folded round a ‘dummy’ to be inserted and validated with the print.

Back in the 1960s it was far more down to vigilance by the Station Master. A good one, often from a clerical rather than an operating background, could develop a good ‘feel’ that a particular booking clerk was issuing an unusual number of blanks.