ticket

January 31, 2016

Smartcat Sundays: An Executive’s Train Ticket

Another one of the many things I enjoy collecting are interesting train tickets. Old commutation passes, complete with photo identification of the user, are one of my favorites – however today’s artifact is a bit different. While the tickets belonging to commuters are occasionally found, it is definitely more rare to encounter a ticket belonging to one of the New York Central Railroad’s executives. This leatherbound ticket folio, belonging to C. R. Dugan, has decorative golden corners, and is personalized with gold lettering. Inside are an array of passes for various railroads that Mr. Dugan was able to enjoy in...

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November 10, 2014

Meet TIM – Metro-North’s new credit card enabled Ticket Issuing Machine

As most of you have likely heard by now, Metro-North has begun a pilot program testing new Ticket Issuing Machines (TIMs) on the Upper Harlem Line (or as Metro-North would call it, the Wassaic “Branch”) and the Danbury Branch. The big news about these machines is that they accept credit cards – something conductors selling tickets have long been unable to do. I got a chance to check out one of these new machines, and must admit they are quite cool. Slim and light compared to the previous TIMs, these new machines are essentially tricked-out iPhones running special software. Wrapped...

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July 2, 2013

Is there anything to eat on this darn train? Tickets and menus from the 20th Century Limited

Right before Grand Central’s Parade of Trains I got an email from Polly Desjarlais, one of the educators at the Transit Museum. The museum was looking for a copy of a nice ticket to duplicate and hand out to kids at the Parade, and there’d even be a costumed conductor to punch those tickets. Since there would also be a coloring book page of the 20th Century Limited, they were really looking for a ticket from that specific train. Unfortunately, my collection did not include a ticket from the 20th Century. Not only that, I had never even seen a...

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May 13, 2013

A Commuter’s Rainbow

Not too long ago, I showed you all some of the various commuter monthly ticket designs from the past one hundred years. One of the most common types of monthly ticket is the colored style. Bright, varying colors are obvious to the conductor taking tickets, and each month features a new color for identification purposes. For the longtime commuters that just happen to save all of their monthly tickets, they can quickly collect an entire rainbow… Metro-North’s tickets are pretty awesome for creating rainbows… there have been quite an array of colors, and the ticket features a large block of...

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March 8, 2013

A Hundred Years of Commuter Tickets to Grand Central

If you caught the article that I wrote in Railfan & Railroad Magazine for Grand Central Terminal’s centennial, you’re likely familiar with my thought that GCT is not just a beautiful building, but one that is still relevant and useful. Undoubtedly there are people out there that feel that Grand Central is just a washed up relic – a shadow of its former self. The mighty trains that once served the station – like the Empire State Express, and the Twentieth Century Limited – are long gone. In fact, since Amtrak left in 1991, not a single long distance train...

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February 12, 2013

Metro North is 30 – A Collection of Tickets, Timetables & more

With Grand Central Terminal celebrating its centennial this year, most people have been so utterly focused on that event that they’ve forgotten another birthday (myself included). Metro-North Railroad is now 30, and has come quite a long way since its inception in 1983. Grand Central was restored to greatness, as opposed to being a dirty homeless shelter. For the most part, especially with the new M8’s, the railroad operates with decent equipment – not whatever the desperate railroad could scrounge up to have enough cars to operate. Several other commuter rail services that were also run by ConRail in the...