Enthusiast Ian Chapman has recently discovered some rare Tyne and Wear Metro tickets on ebay which he has added to his extensive ticket collection. His large collection already includes over 40,000 used Metro tickets but some of the latest additions have an extra rarity value as they were printed with the date the day before the Metro actually opened!<\/p>\n
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The tickets were purchased as part of a job lot and included nine that were issued on Sunday 10th<\/sup> August 1980 \u2013 the day before the first public services operated on the network.<\/p>\n Ian Chapman said: \u201cIt\u2019s not often that you see Metro tickets that were sold before the network was opened. I\u2019m thrilled to have found some.<\/p>\n \u201cBack in August 1980, a lot of transport enthusiasts will have gone to the Metro stations the night before the opening to try and get the very first ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ticket machines back then were analogue, so they will have printed the previous day\u2019s date on them up to around 2am.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first section of Metro between Haymarket and Tynemouth was opened at 5am on 11 August 1980. The French-made Metro ticket machines from that time period used the old Edmondson style rail tickets printed on thin strips of yellow card.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw a batch of them on eBay for \u00a322 and I decided to buy them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen l looked at them more closely, I noticed that nine were printed the day before the opening, which is a quirk, and not something all that common. Two of them were issued at Monkseaton, one at Cullercoats, and the other three at Tynemouth.<\/p>\n \u201cFor rail enthusiasts there is great fondness for these old-style tickets. Not only because they are from the opening of Metro, but because they are the heritage style tickets that were phased out on the national railways in 1990, but were in use on Metro up to 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Holy Grail for all collectors is to find the very first ever Tyne and Wear Metro ticket, number 000001. It will hopefully be out there somewhere. I\u2019ll keep looking. I\u2019ve got a passion for Metro memorabilia.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynne Dickinson, Station Delivery Manager at Nexus, said: \u201cMetro tickets from the day before the system opened are rare. The ticket machines were switched on in the days leading up to the opening, but most people will more than likely have bought tickets on the actual day Metro began operating.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old-style Metro tickets are a real keepsake for enthusiasts and collectors. They\u2019re a small part of Metro\u2019s identity as part of everyday life in our region for 46 years.\u201d<\/p>\n The tickets are of the old yellow type design. These were issued by the automatic coin operated ticket machines and were still issued up until the introduction of new ticket machines in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Enthusiast Ian Chapman has recently discovered some rare Tyne and Wear Metro tickets on ebay which he has added to his extensive ticket collection. His large collection already includes over 40,000 used Metro tickets but some of the latest additions … Continue reading