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Printing traditional Edmondson card tickets...
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| Ticket printing at Dunster Station
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The Railway has a Ticket Printing Service based at Dunster Station. Using an original Edmondson machine, many thousands of traditional card railway tickets, not only for use on the West Somerset, but for many other heritage railways.
The following item by Colin Dowrick appeared in the Winter 1992 WSR Journal:
"The WSR's final ticket order to British Rail's Crewe printing works was received at Minehead in July 1987. BR ceased printing card tickets on Christmas Eve of that year. In January 1990 we printed our first tickets for the WSR at Dunster.
In 1988, Hein Burger, then the WSR's Assistant General Manager, realising the need to secure future supplies of card tickets for the Railway, visited the former Crewe printing works and tendered successfully for an Edmondson ticket printing press.
This press had been manufactured in 1944, as machine number 717, by Waterlow and Sons. Hein also secured a ticket binding machine, which may well be the only one to be rescued from Crewe, and a large number of blank railway tickets. I must also mention the debt we owe to Mr Michael Farr for the help he gave the WSR during these negotiations. In the summer of 1989, after much preparatory work, the press was installed in the former parcels office at Dunster Station. We were given an hours lesson on the use of the press by Mr Mick Norman, formerly in charge of the Crewe ticket printing shop, and we were then on our own!
Looking back, the quality of our first tickets was pehaps a little disappointing, but, as so often in life, practice has brought, if not perfection, then at least a well received quality of product. Since our start in 1990 we have printed well over half a million tickets, many for the WSR and even more for other Railways and Societies. Not surpisingly, perhaps, after so many hours spent operating the press, I had often wondered about its designer, Thomas Edmondson..."
And then Colin went on to describe the life of the inventor...
Full details from Minehead Station, telephone 01643 704996 or Email: info@west-somerset-railway.co.uk
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Colin Dowrick printing tickets in 2003
Colin Dowrick binding tickets in 2003
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