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)?

Thanks.

"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.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

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.

Orienteer wrote:
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)?


I think it was pre Victoria line opening. I've a set of notes that I got on
a training course many years back about the Rapid Printer (machine for
printing and encoding the original yellow magnetic tickets) that are dated
1968. These wouldn't have been used until the machines were being used so
mid 1960's seems a good starting point. I'll have a deeper delve to see if
anything is filed in the more remote regions of the house.


--
Cheers for now,

John from Harrow, Middx

remove spamnocars to reply

On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:32:21 GMT, "Orienteer"
wrote:

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)?


Like others in this thread, I'm sure it was about the time of the
Victoria Line opening in the late 1960s. This was very much a
production system, not just an experiment.

Again as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the whole of the back of
the ticket was a magnetic surface. However these tickets were much
smaller than the current tube tickets. The front of these tickets was
yellow to make them distinctive to passengers, so those with yellow
tickets could go through the automatic gates while those with other
tickets had to show them at a barrier

Martin

Martin Rich wrote:

Again as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the whole of the back of
the ticket was a magnetic surface. However these tickets were much
smaller than the current tube tickets.

Same size as a 'proper' Edmondson ticket IIRC

In article ,
says...
Martin Rich wrote:

Again as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the whole of the back of
the ticket was a magnetic surface. However these tickets were much
smaller than the current tube tickets.

Same size as a 'proper' Edmondson ticket IIRC



Oxide-backed rapidprinter tickets for single and return journeys normally
only showed day and month, the earliest I have with a year showing is
dated November 1968. There were certainly weekly season tickets of this
type issued in 1970. From memory I think that Hammersmith was used
experimentally for oxide tickets prior to the opening of the Victoria
Line, and Stamford Brook and Turnham Green for non-oxide tickets showing
barcodes. AFAIK oxide Edmondsons didn't appear until 1979.

"Jim Brittin" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
says...
Martin Rich wrote:

Again as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the whole of the back of
the ticket was a magnetic surface. However these tickets were much
smaller than the current tube tickets.

Same size as a 'proper' Edmondson ticket IIRC



Oxide-backed rapidprinter tickets for single and return journeys normally
only showed day and month, the earliest I have with a year showing is
dated November 1968. There were certainly weekly season tickets of this
type issued in 1970. From memory I think that Hammersmith was used
experimentally for oxide tickets prior to the opening of the Victoria
Line, and Stamford Brook and Turnham Green for non-oxide tickets showing
barcodes. AFAIK oxide Edmondsons didn't appear until 1979.

Thanks for all your responses.

Are there any books on (LT including LU) ticket history?

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 15:12:34 +0000 (UTC), Jim Brittin
wrote:

In article ,
says...
Martin Rich wrote:

Again as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the whole of the back of
the ticket was a magnetic surface. However these tickets were much
smaller than the current tube tickets.

Same size as a 'proper' Edmondson ticket IIRC



Oxide-backed rapidprinter tickets for single and return journeys normally
only showed day and month, the earliest I have with a year showing is
dated November 1968. There were certainly weekly season tickets of this
type issued in 1970. From memory I think that Hammersmith was used
experimentally for oxide tickets prior to the opening of the Victoria
Line, and Stamford Brook and Turnham Green for non-oxide tickets showing
barcodes. AFAIK oxide Edmondsons didn't appear until 1979.

As I used to work for someone who was involved with this back in the 60s
that all sounds correct to me except for the 1979 reference to oxide
Edmondson tickets. That seems very very late given that credit card
sized tickets for UTS were introduced in something like 1984/5 with
gates at Regents Park in 1987. I'd be surprised that a ticketing
development like that would be introduced when a brand new alternative
was under development.
--
Paul C
Admits to Working for London Underground!

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. ...

I visited Montreal at least three times in the 1960s and 1970s, and I'm
pretty sure the tickets for the Montreal Metro were of the same style
on each occasion. If I'm right, this means they were using magnetic-
stripe tickets there by 1967 -- presumably from 1966 when their first
two Metro lines opened.

Further, since the MUCTC/SCTUM chose to mimic the Paris Metro in various
respects, this suggests that Paris may also have been using magnetic-
stripe tickets by the mid-1960s. However, unless the Paris tickets
have changed size and shape since then, Montreal didn't copy that;
the Paris ones I've used (since 1985) are about Edmondson size, whereas
the Montreal ones I remember are smaller and squarer, like normal North
American transit tickets. So maybe Montreal didn't copy the use of
magnetic stripes from Paris either, in which case I have no idea when
they were first used in Paris.
--
Mark Brader "Doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing."
Toronto "Doing *anything* is worse than doing nothing!"
-- Lynn & Jay: YES, PRIME MINISTER

My text in this article is in the public domain.