In view of the impending introduction of the Inset Ticket system on the New Zealand Railways, the following planatory particulars have been supplied by Insets (New Zealand) Ltd., for the information of readers of the “New Zealand Railways Magasine.”

Examining Inset Tickets.

About the middle of October there will be notices placed in a conspicuous position, near the ticket office, in all the main stations and main country stations throughout New Zealand which will be worded as follows:—

“Please Look Inside Your New Ticket.”

This will notify passengers of the Mones-Cross ticket. Each ticket will have on top the word “Pull” and will contain an advertisement on behalf of various well-known manufacturers.

This ticket bears the name of its inventor, and it might be of interest to your readers to know that it took three years to perfect the machinery that manufactures the tickets. Into one end of the principal machine is fed a thin roll of cardboard paper, and after nine successive operations, the finished ticket comes out the other end—with the Inset printed and inserted.

One appealing factor to the advertiser which this machine has, is that it can produce forty-eight tickets simultaneously, each containing a different advertisement—which is a guarantee against an advertiser having his tickets in circulation for only a month or so.

As regards New Zealand, each advertiser has a proportionate amount of tickets issued daily for a period of twelve months. There is no novelty attached to this scheme as the variety of the advertisements always holds the interest of the travelling public. Moreover, the manufacturer can make these Insets of value (such as offering them as a discount, or for prizes, or having some competition.)

For the information of New Zealand firms, it may be said this scheme is now well-established in England. All the tickets issued by the London, Midland and Scottish Railways throughout the country employ the inset ticket principle.

Its advantages as an advertising medium may be summarised as follows:—

1. Curiosity will compel the passenger to pull the Inset, and therefore read the advertisement.

2. The passenger is in a receptive frame of mind at the time of inspection.

3. He has plenty of time to read the advertisement.

4. The advertisement registers in the passenger's mind.

5. It has a solus position as there are no distractions of any kind.

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Naturally, these Insets will be passed from hand to hand and commented upon, and incidentally manufacturers using this medium will get that which they pay their good money for—that is that their message will be seen and remembered.

Oing to the circumstances under which it is read, small though the Inset is, its space, proportionate to its value, is as big as a front page in a paper. It is quite possible to put thirty-two words clearly on one side of an Inset, which is sufficient to give the essence of the advertiser's “story.”

The Inset Ticket is an entirely British idea, supported with British capital and British labour.

An Historic Locomotive

One of the most interesting of the world's early steam railway locomotives has just been placed on permanent exhibition at Lime Street Station, Liverpool, on the L.M. and S. system. This is the “Lion” locomotive, built in 1838 by Todd, Kitson and Laird, of Leeds, for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

The “Lion” has two cylinders of 14 inches diameter by 18in. stroke, and coupled wheels of 5ft. diameter. The locomotive follows the general design of Robert Stephenson's machines generally employed on the Home railways between 1833 and 1845. Noteworthy features are outside sandwich frames of wood between iron plates, and inner frames of wrought iron carrying crank-axle bearings. The original frames, cylinders, valve and driving gear, wheels and axles, still in good order, remain on the engine, and the “Lion” is understood to be the only remaining locomotive in working order carrying the original cab valve motion.

When constructed, the “Lion” locomotive was numbered 57. It first served on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, then on the Grand Junction Railway. In 1846 it became “No. 116” of the London and North Western line, and in 1859 the “Lion” was purchased by the Liverpool dock authorities. In 1928 the engine was acquired by the Liverpool Engineering Society, and at the Liverpool and Manchester Centenary celebrations the “Lion” proudly drew an exact replica of a passenger train of 1830 along the exhibition tracks.

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