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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 12 (April 1, 1928.)

Automatic Ticket Devices

Automatic Ticket Devices.

Marked progress has been effected during the past quarter of a century in the methods employed by the world's railways in the issue of tickets to passengers. Since Edmondson brought into use on the old Newcastle and Carlisle railway the first ticket-issuing machine, a vast number of ingenious automatic devices have been pressed into the service of the booking-clerk, and in this connection no railway system has played a more enterprising role than the Underground Railways of London.

Twenty years ago the “pull-bar” slot machines were first introduced on the Underground to assist the booking-clerk, and the machines in use to-day not only issue the tickets in return for suitable coins, but also print and date them as issued, and give correct change for sixpenny and shilling pieces. Slot machines are also electrically attached to a special form of turnstile which is automatically released on insertion of a coin, and give access to platforms by purely mechanical means. The latest innovation is an electric table ticket printer which is being introduced. Two of these machines deal with the whole of the tickets issued at a busy station, all the tickets being printed from blank rolls at the time of demand, instead of having to be specially printed in advance of issue and stored in bulky ticket racks.

On the Underground Railways of London some 28 million tickets are issued annually from slot machines, while in the “passimeter” offices an additional 127 million tickets annually are handed out. The installation of the new electric ticket printers will enable 180 million tickets to be issued by machinery annually.