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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 6 (September 2, 1935)

Novel Mechanical Contrivances

page 23

Novel Mechanical Contrivances.

Mechanical equipment of various types is constantly being introduced to aid the railway traveller. Two recent interesting developments take the form of the provision of a quick-service ticket-issuing machine at Liverpool Street Station, London, and a new electric train departure indicator at Paddington Station, London.

The Liverpool Street machine speeds up ticket-issuing enormously, and what is better still from the railway point of view immensely simplifies operations in the booking-office. Not only does the machine print and issue tickets, but it also actually counts up the day's takings. By the pressure of a button the machine prints, dates and issues a ticket selected from 3,040 different types, and simultaneously records the amount of money involved. The consecutive amounts are automatically added together, so that the booking-clerk can tell at any moment what are the total receipts.

The Paddington train indicator is an equally ingenius contrivance. It is an electrical indicator (installed on the concourse) which not only tells passengers the time, destination, and platform of departure trains, but changes its face throughout the twenty-four hours without any human aid. The machine is enclosed in a glass-fronted case ten feet high by six feet wide. To look at, it is like a large venetian blind with twenty-nine metal slats, on each of which is painted the time of a train and the principal stations served. The slats run on endless belts, in groups of ten, only one slat in each group being displayed at one time. An electric motor sets in motion, at intervals during the twenty-four hours, the twenty-nine endless belts, thus erasing the one setting and bringing into view the next set of trains. Altogether, this is one of the most ingenious train-departure indicators we have seen.