Train Talk (Chai & Choo Choos)

Fully agree, though eliminating cardboard tkt, chart paper tickets & e-tkt printouts on a4 are certainly better for environment, but the charm is missing...
When my wife made a scrap book for my kid, she pasted the first ticket where we traveled as a 'family'. I wonder if it would look so nice with an e-tkt printout or a SMS snapshot...

Same goes with the paper tkts that were eliminated in airlines. Try comparing a surprise gift of an envelope containing the old-fashioned tkts with an e-tkt print-out...

Perhaps they should allow people to opt a souvenir option to preserve such tickets at an additional fee...

They don't take up that much space, do they? Or did you frame them and hang them up on the walls? I keep them in two boxes - one for tickets I have used myself and one for tickets I obtained by other means. In earlier days in India one had to surrender one's ticket at the exit, so I don't have many old Indian ones.
I have some unusual tickets, though, like an Italian one from Cesena to Faenza. I travelled that section in 1987 when all of Italy had long switched to matrix printers. To my surprise and delight the gentleman at the ticket office punched out a cardboard ticket.

And the weighing-cum-fortune-telling machines on station platforms used those same blanks.

Thanks Golghar. It could have been that but I only have a hazy recollection of the photo here and (whisper it ) I wasn't really paying attention to the train type and model number etc.


It's a PushMe-PullYou

What is the Edmondson system? Tell us more about the factory - did you go there?

I love those old weighing machines! Many a time I've weighed myself to while away some time on a platform.
For some reason I still carry round in my purse a weight ticket from Delhi in 1995. It is like a lucky charm . It has the name Delhi Scale Co, 2240 Dakotan St, Turkman Gate, Delhi. On the back is a picture of 'Rakhi' (I guess Rakhi Gulzar?) and my fortune in Hindi which I've never bothered to get deciphered. Maybe I should .

So, are there any of those old weighing-cum-fortune-telling machines left? The last time I was in India I didn't see any but Kolkata (the metro) had fancy modern ones with a computer printout ticket. Not as much fun but I still weighed myself every chance I could .

Most commuters steer clear of weighing scales at rly stations

A couple of photos of the weighing machines here and here.

A cousin taught me a trick to preserve those tickets. You simply had to hold on to them & get them checked. When the checker at exit tried to pull them from you, you had to say that you need to submit it in office for reimbursement of travel, then he would scribble something & let you go with the ticket!!!

That would have gone against my upbringing!

I don't have any platform tickets from that era either. They used to cost 25np and you got them from a vending machine in the main concourse.

@JuliaF
Scan the Hindi text on your ticket and post it here!

No but according to my wife they are always in the wrong place.

Not the tickets but I do collect and frame post card sized reproductions of railway posters (mainly French and North American). I've been told to curtail this hobby as we are running out of wall space for them.

Sadly we didn't get to visit the factory. Here are a couple of links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmondson_railway_ticket

http://www.irfca.org/articles/isrs/fnrm2-edmondson.html

sorry, but i still don't see why the ticket checker at the exit HAD to collect (instead of check) our tickets. if it was as per some rule, then he should not have given it to my cousin anyway. also many travel reimbursement rules (before e-tkt era) require that the ticket in original be submitted, so it was imperative that the proof of travel by way of ticket be retained by the traveler.
i think they wanted to build up a collection so that they could auction it on e-bay few decades later

When my father made a trip for which the costs were to be reimbursed, he asked for and got a receipt from the ticket office. I have never lived in India as a working adult so I have no personal experience.

@Dave
Thanks for the Edmondson links!

I just found this cardboard ticket while looking for something else. It was issued on 6th March 2012 at the Neral narrow gauge booking office for a First Class trip up to Matheran. No advance booking needed that day although the trains were packed later in the week.

Three languages on this small piece of cardboard! Now I know "Neral" is pronounced with a "dark" l in Marathi and both the as in "Matheran" are long.

I'm probably getting totally out of my depth with this question but what is a "dark"/ ?

Hi Dave and Golghar, I have some tickets for you

For Golghar, we have the lovely Rakhi and some words of wisdom for me . I can get Aaj ka kam aaj hi ... but then I get stuck.

And for Dave, my ticket from the narrow gauge line from Katwa to Ahmadpur on 22 Jan 2010.

the words of wisdom are "finish today what is due today, don't leave it for tomorrow". i don't think those are rakhi's words to be sure...

wow, this must have been long long ago... unless the travel agent provided a receipt, IR does not provide any additional receipt besides the ticket where entire cost is mentioned. in fact in the earlier i-tkt (or across the counter tkts), i even recall a specific mention to this effect (that no additional receipt will be provided). but then, my memory is from 1980s & things might have changed since then.
as recently as 2005, i had to submit the i-tkt original for reimbursement (admin stated that as income tax rules for expense audit), but i think with e-tkt becoming commonplace, that is no longer relevant...