US660417A - Railroad-ticket. - Google Patents

Description

3 Sheets-Sheet l.

Patented Oct. 23, |900.

G. w. CRAIG. RAILROAD TICKET. (Application led Oct. 26, 1899.)

No. 660,4l7.

(No Model.)

3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

Patented ont. 23, |900.

G. w. CRAIG. RAILROAD TICKET.

(Application led Oct. 26, 1899.)

No. 660,4l7.

(No Model.)

TH: NomFs-wirsns co. FHoTaLnHn., wAsHmamN. D. c.

Patented oct. 23, |900.

G. W. CRAIG.

RAILROAD TICKET.

(Application iled Oct. 26, 1899.)

3 Sheets-Sheet 3.

(No lIlodel.)

m.. E S S F.NL W W ATTORNEYS UNITED y STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GEORGE WESTON CRAIG, OF PROVO CITY, UTAH.

SI'E(l1FICATIOl-Nl forming part of Letters Patent No. 660,417, dated October 23., 1900. l

Application filed October 26,1899. Serial No. 734,792. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.- y

Be it known that I, GEORGE WESTON CRAIG, of Provo City, in the co untyof Utah and State of Utah, have invented new and-useful Im provements in Railroad-Tickets, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description. i

My invention relates to railroad-tickets, and particularly to those known as coupontickets and issued for journeys extending over the lines of several companies.

. One object of my invention is to provide a ticket form which will be available for passage between any two of a number of stations and which will enable the issuing agent to make the ticket read via any one of the several lines which may be traveled over to reach the final destination. Thus according to my invention one form of ticket will suffice where hitherto a very large number of forms has been required, thus eecting a considerable saving and affording greater convenience, since the stock of tickets may be materially reduced.

Another object of my invention is to so arrange the parts of the' ticket that all of them may be readily punched together and that fraud will be guarded against. Y

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, forming a part of this specification, in which similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures.

Figures la and lb show the improved ticket open or extended, Fig. lb being the righthand continuation of Fig. l. Fig. 2 is a broken plan showing the ticket as it appears when folded, and Fig. 3 is a sectional elevation on the line 3 3 of Fig. 2.,

The ticket shown in the drawings is a threecoupon ticket-that is, one coupon will be good for passage from the starting-station to a junction -point, the second coupon from this junction-point to another junction-point, and the third to the final destination. The principles of construction described hereinafter may, however, be applied to any ticket having two or more coupons or sections.

The ticket shown comprises the following parts: a general-information sect-ion A, three passenger coupons B C D, and an agents stub E. The ticket is adapted to. be folded along the lines a o, which separate the sections from each other, and, if desired,

folding may be facilitated by scoring or perforating the ticket along said 1ines.` Such means would also facilitate the successive tearing off of the ticket-sections.

The general-information section A (see Fig. lil) has a blank space for theinsertion of any remarks or matter the company may desire to add-such as a description of the purchaser, or his signature, or other means of identification. At the margin of this section appear the usual indications of the time-limit by year in space A, month in spaceA, and day in .space A3. At the bottom is an index t-o junction-points A4, having blank' spaces, as at A5, to be filled in by writing or in any other manner by the agent. issuing the ticket. When these blanks have been filled, as shown, the index will designate not only the terminal stations of each coupon, but the line available for each of the coupons. Thus in the example shown the ticket is issued for passage from Provo City to Chicago, the first coupon entitling the holder to passage from Provo City to Ogden via the Oregon Short Line, the second coupon reads From Ogden to Council Blus Via the Union Paciicf,7 and the third entitles the passenger to transportation on the Chicago and North Western from Council Bluffs to Chicago. As all this appears on the index A4, which remains connected with the ticket until the end of the journey, the perpetratiou of fraud by changing the coupons is practically made impossible.

The passenger coupons B C D and the agents stub E are practically alike, differing from each other by details in the heading in the space at the top. Thus coupon B is Good only from junction-point via line No. 3 and to final destination, while the wordingis appropriately changed forthe other coupons and for the agents stub. Another difference between these coupons and the stub will be pointed out hereinafter; but I shall first describe those features in which they are alike. Each of the said parts has at F a list of lines which may be available, with blank'spaces F to receive indications in Writing or preferably by numbered punches as to the particular lines selected by the passenger and the order in which they are to be used. Further, in a IOO section Cr under the heading Class are proper indicationsaud blank spacesito speciy the conditions to which the ticket is subject; also, if desired, a blank space for the reception of a baggagepunch mark. At the bottom (or at any other convenient place) is a series of spaces H for the punchunarksy of the several conductors. The body of each of the passage-cou pons and ofthe stub comprises four sections or lists, (or generically speaking, one in excess of the number of passage-coupons the ticket contains,) of which the first, I, contains a list of starting-stations and first junction-points, preferably with one; or more blanks, so that the name of a less-importantstation may be written in such blank space. The second section I' contains a list of the Various junction-stations at. which a traveler coming from one of the starting-stations (in list I) may pass upon a connecting-line, together with further junction-points ot' such connecting-lines. The third section I2 con tains a list of the several junction-stations at which a passenger, having traveled over the first-mentioned con meeting-line, may be transferred to another connecting-line to reach his` final destination, which may be any one of the stations indicated in the list appearingin the section I3. Adjacent to each station-naine in -the various lists is a space, preferably numbered, as shown, to receive a punch-mark.

While the matter contained in the spaces F G I I 12 I3 is the same for each of the coupons B C D and for the stub E, its arrangement is different in the coupon C and stub E (which are alike in this particular) from the coupons B and D, which again are alike except as to the heading. Sections B and D have the arrangement of sections C and Ewreversed from left to right, and vice versathat is, the central columns of station-names are the same; but what is the right-hand column in the sections B and D becomes the leftharid column in the sections C and E, and vice versa. Similarly the spaces F G are at the left in sections B and D and at the right in sections C and E. Also in sections B and D the numerals are at theleft of stationnames, and in sections C and E they are at the right of such names. arrangement is to bring those spaces of the several sections which are adapted to receive corresponding punch-marks into exact su perposition when the ticket is folded, as shown in Fig. 3, so that all of the four parts B, C,

D, and E may receive their corresponding claim as new and desire to secure by Letters punch-marks J at the same time.

The improved ticket is used as follows: Let us assume the passenger desires a ticket from Provo City to Chicago via the Oregon Short Line, (to Ogden,) the Union Pacitic, (to Council Bluiis,) and the Chicago and Northwestern. The ticket agent punches the date at A A2 A3 in the usual manner and inserts in the spaces A5 of the index A4 the indications shown in Fig. la. The agent then folds the ticket along the lines aa, as indicated in full z have to be punched only once. l of the lateral columns, however, is of moment for the auditors con venience, and I therefore t consider said lateral columns not only a useful feature of my ticket, but necessary thereto.

The purpose of this proved ticket as shown and described, as such l arrangement may be varied without departl ing from the spirit of my invention, and I coni sider myself entitled to all such variations as lines in Fig. 3. and then punches the four sections B C D E, as indicated in Fig. :3--thatis` in the line-list Fa numerical punchmark l for Ov. S. L, (Oregon Short Line,) the mark 2 for UIL Pac, and the mark 3 for C. da N. W. In the station-list I the station Provo City is punched. The station Ogden is punched both in the list I and in the listl, The station-name Council Bluffs is punched in the lists I' and I2 and the filial destination, Chicago, is punchedin the last listIS. The natureof theticket-forinstance,

l First-class, limited is also indicated by tained by the last conductor of each line, as customary.

It will be seen that the improved ticket willV avoid the necessity for a multiplicity of forms and will enable any agent to issue tickets good over a large variety of routes, while the ma# nipulations in punching the ticket are so obvious that mistakes on the part of the issuing agent are not likely to occur. As each of the sections by its punch-marks, or as for the section A by the index A, gives full de-Y tails as to the stations between which the ticket is good and what lines should be traveled over, the use of the ticket upon other `lines connecting the same stations is made impossible, and fraudulent alterations of the 1 ticket are eifectively prevented.

'It will be obvious that the ticket might be l somewhat simplified by the omission of the lateral columns in the lists I and I', in which case the name of each junction-point would The addition It is to be understood thatI do not limit myself to the exact arrangement of my imcome within the scope of my claims.

Having thus described my invention, I

Patentl. A coupon-ticket, comprising a plurality of sections having marks indicating the order in which said sections are to be used, each section also having a list of starting-points,

a list of destination-points, a list of intermediate or junction points, and a separate list of the lines available for travel between such starting, junction and destination points, so that, by appropriately punching stations in IIO , the startingpoint,a list of destination-points,

a list of intermediate or junction points, and a separate list of the lines available for travel between the starting, junction, and destination points. t v

3. yA coupon-ticket, comprisinga pluralityof sections having marks indicating the order in which said sections are to be used, each section having a space for the indication of the starting-point, another space for the indication of the destination-point, a list of intermediate or junction points', and a Separate list of the lines available for travel between the starting, junction, and destination points.

4. A coupon-ticket, comprising a plurality of sections having marks indicating the order in which said sections are to be used, each section having a space for the indication of the starting-point, vanother space for the indication of the destination-point, a list of intermediate or junction points, a separate list of the lines available for travel between the starting,'junction and destination points, and another section provided with an index having blank spaces for the insertion ofthe names ot' the terminal stations of each coupon and ot' the lines for which the ticket is issued.

5. A couponticket, comprising a plurality of adjacent sections adapted to be folded one over the other, each section having spaces for the indication of the'starting-pointand des,- tination-point respectively, a list of interme diate or junction points, and a 'separate list of the lines available for travel between such starting', junction, and destination points, the

relative arrangement of such spaces and lists being reversed, as regards right and left, in

adjacent sections so that correspondingl spaces of the sections will be in vregistry or Witnesses i' F. H. PLAISTED, JAMES A TWETRES.

Images