It is said that the best way to travel in India is to travel by train and not an airplane. The marvelous view offered in a train travel cannot match the view at 30,000 feet's above the ground. The first thing this reminds me of is Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, and the scene of travelling India on train (an on the roof top of trains). The hustle bustle at a railway station cannot match the sophisticated crowd at the Airports (though this does not mean that our railway station should not try to become like Airports, they desperately need to).
In September 2009, I got the chance to visit the National Rail Museum in New Delhi and was astonished to see the different Rail engines and coaches. The best part was the story of Railway ticket.
Today we have many options to book a railway ticket (the preferred way for most techies being logging on to http://www.irctc.co.in/). But in gold old days, when there was no concept of printed ticket, a book was maintained with the name, addresses and destination of passengers. The guard of the train was handed the list of passengers with their details before the beginning of the journey.
To improvise this process of handwritten tickets, Thomas Edmondson, a station master from Britain in 1836, made cardboard ticket prepared from wooden press blocks. However there was still the need to write the date with ink. To improvise this he used an improved assembly with inked ribbon similar to that of typewriter. This is how ticket issuing machine were invented. Once British bought Railway to India, they bought this technology here. Till computerised tickets were introduced, this was the method of issuing tickets in India.
In September 2009, I got the chance to visit the National Rail Museum in New Delhi and was astonished to see the different Rail engines and coaches. The best part was the story of Railway ticket.
Today we have many options to book a railway ticket (the preferred way for most techies being logging on to http://www.irctc.co.in/). But in gold old days, when there was no concept of printed ticket, a book was maintained with the name, addresses and destination of passengers. The guard of the train was handed the list of passengers with their details before the beginning of the journey.
To improvise this process of handwritten tickets, Thomas Edmondson, a station master from Britain in 1836, made cardboard ticket prepared from wooden press blocks. However there was still the need to write the date with ink. To improvise this he used an improved assembly with inked ribbon similar to that of typewriter. This is how ticket issuing machine were invented. Once British bought Railway to India, they bought this technology here. Till computerised tickets were introduced, this was the method of issuing tickets in India.
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