Historical Tickets

Others will be able to answer better than I, but an Edmonson ticket was the standard ticket used in the UK for about 100 years. Each ticket was individually printed in advance and held in the ticket office, then date stamped - you can imagine how many different types were required! They were replaced by computerised systems which print on generic ticket stock, which is obviously easier than storing a massive variety of tickets.

See here - although I don't know how many LU tickets are on it:
therailticketgallery.fotopic.net/

Hmm...

The characteristic of Edmondson tickets (which were originated by Thomas Edmondson, who worked as a booking clerk (i.e. ticket seller) on Newcastle and Carlisle Railway) was that they were a standard size (about 1" by 2") cardboard, largely pre-printed [1] and sequentially numbered [2], stored in racks so that the next ticket could easily be taken, dated (by a date press) and issued. They, and the associated racks and date presses were feature of British (and many other) railways from their inception until recently - they were more or less universal for over a century until more sophisticated 'multi printer' ticket machines came along in the 1950s/60s, but it was only the computer revolution which led to their final replacement in the 1990s - but they are still commonly used on preserved railways (one of which has an appropriate printing press!). One of the Underground innovations of (IIRC) the 1920s was to simplify things, by only having the originating station and fare printed - their tickets were then valid to anywhere having that fare.

[1] 'Standard' tickets (i.e. for common journeys) were fully pre-printed, but there were also 'write in' variations for the unusual requirements (which tended to be preprinted 'from Here to ....', the There having to be written in and duly recorded). Study of the full range of variations is a large subject in its own right, as indicated by MRFS.

[2] so that they could easily be accounted for by means of the number of the 'next' ticket.

Bell Punch tickets on the other hand were the standard ticket on buses and trams - they were also preprinted and sequentially numbered, but had the possible 'origins' down the sides - the (wandering) conductor/guard carried a small rack of the required tickets. The punching (and ding) was to validate the ticket (and indicate whence it was valid) - I think the idea of the ding was that the passenger knew he had a newly punched ticket. They were normally only used on railways where there was a travelling ticket seller (rather than static ticket offices). For railways they were normally from a specific station - fare stages are a bus/tram concept, of specific, named stops used in a graduated fare structure, were fares changed (incremented).
AIUI there was no great counting of the punches - accounting was done by knowing how many of which value tickets had been issued. Although there was another system that the General (London General Omnibus Company - the bus bit of the combine) tried, where the number of punches did have to correspond to the number of pence paid - and the punches did have to be counted.

Re: seeing pics of examples, there are quite a few dotted about the transport pages of www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites.shtml

That's a CSLR workmans - feast your eyes on these examples of Edmonsons - they're all City and South London (they're angelislington's, not mine)

Singles



Note the overprint 'U' - this was for ticket collectors to see when the tickets were collected that the person had got off the train at the correct station U for eUston, other stations had colour-coding - green for Oval and red bands for Kings Cross - I can't remember all the details.



A 'standard' station-to-station Edmondson - I've got a note (somewhere) of what the S.xx codes mean, they were generally for audit purposes (and depended which bit of the ticket was snipped or punched to indicate a priv. or a child: a reduced size ticket meant a reduced fare!) - it all depended on the whim of the railway and which bit was to be snipped out and which bit was to be retained to account for the shortfall in cash.



Note that this is a multi-destination ticket, but all in the same fare zone of 1d.



An oddity, this one: it is a machine issue exchange ticket [1] . I'm not sure of the date, as unlike the rest it is unfranked/dated - I think it dates from the post-1913 era, but I am a mite puzzled by the lack of UYndergrounD branding - it is not a strict Edmondson as such, but worth including as it is so curious.

[1]between the C&SLR and the GNP&B.


Returns (Used)



This is a better example of a Workman's ticket - these were reduced fare tickets available on early trains in the day, there are a series of notices detailing which trains were the last to be able to have workmen's tickets booked on them. Although this is almost Edmondson size, I suspect that it is machine-issue as it is undated and distinctly thinner than the other examples of pasteboard. I also suspect that this is an exchange ticket, issued at machine 1 at Clapham Road, valid via Bank to Chancery Lane or Liverpool Street on the Central: another oddity - it is dated 1 NO 1[splodge] (1910 - 1919) so it probably dates from the UERL era - but I'd have to check on my dates - if it were signalling or WTTs I'd be fine, but for tickets I'm really making it up on the hoof! I don't offhand recognise the numeration - it isn't Edmonson reversed numeral, nor a Waterlow derivative: unless this was a Waterlow derivative for machine tickets? <shrug>



Look carefully at the right-hand edge, you can see that the ticket is perforated - these return tickets were torn in half: all the example you see are used return halves - the outward half would have the stations reversed, and has been retained for audit at the terminating station; the workmans ticket above has the orientation through 90° - which is *not* the normal British convention, unless you've got lots of lines of text to print on the ticket. What's missing from this ticket then?



Note that you can make out the 'E' of heffalump on the other side of the ticket - the conditions were probably spaced differently - these tickets were all individually typeset in a press - I've got adjacent numbered Manx Northern tickets from the same printing and you can see how the type has moved around slightly.



I guess that the colour for Kennington was blue.



Oval green , but I included this one as it has the fare hand-amended by the booking clerk, saves reprinting costs.


Please take my captions cum grano salis as I'm a bit out of my depth on these ;D

Thanks to all for such detailed information.

The Bell Punch equipment sounds similar to items used on streetcars (trams) here way back when. Originally the flat fare on a lot of streetcars was five cents (aka - a nickel). Fraudulent conductors used to be caught "pinching nickels" - collecting the fare but keeping it for themselves.

Somewhere at my parents house, I have some Edmonson tickets with the now flattened Lincoln St. Marks train station as the destination. Given that I haven't lived there for the best part of 25 years, they may take some finding!

However, next time I'm there, I'll poke around in the loft where all my memorabilia is stored, and if I can locate them, I'll bring them to the Acton meet where someone may have use for them.

SE13, you should know better! It's a RAILWAY station, not a train station!! Horrible modernisms, pah.

Back to the OP, child i.e. half fare Edmunson tickets were literally cut diagonally in half by the issuing booking clerk!