On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 18:11:18 +0000 (UTC), "Terry Harper"
wrote:

"Orienteer" wrote in message
...
Can anyone help answer a query from a friend in Japan?

He's trying to find information about when magnetic stripe tickets were
first used, and heard that LT had some in the 1960s. Were there
experiments
before the current ones were introduced (1980s if I recall correctly)?

Didn't the old yellow strip cards have a magnetic strip? Can't recall when
they came in, though. Presumably when the first automatic gates arrived.

ISTR when the Victoria line opened. They didn't have a stripe as such,
just a brown magnetic back.

LT staff, when giving talks about their proud new railway, claimed
that an old woman had asked why the ticket was brown on the back.
'That's oxide, madam", 'Doesn't look like leather to me.", she
replied.