Paper tickets

 

When I travel by train, I like to buy my tickets from the ticket office. Partly this is in an effort to ensure they see enough business to avoid another attempt to close them down, but also, because the machines have such dreadful usability, that it annoys the part of me that spent years trying to make websites operate for people, rather than for the organisation providing them. 

But, the last couple of times, I've no longer left clutching a cardboard ticket, but a flimsy paper one.  

My first thought was that the makers of Izal toilet paper, had found a new outlet for their stocks. The thickness and shiny surface are about the same. Absorbancy too I suspect, but I haven't tested this. 

Then I find that you no longer feed your ticket into the barrier to pass through. Instead, it's time to use the QR scanning device - the one I'd previously laughed at those with electronic tickets on their phones struggle with.  

As it happens, pushing the graphic in the scanner works much better than the phone version - I have a friend with a theory that the phone goes super-bright when asked to do this, and blinds the scanner.  No such problem with paper. 

This I realise, means that I get to keep my ticket. Card tickets are swallowed up by the barrier, something that annoys me as I like to write on the back of the ticket what it was for (meeting for beer, visiting, an exhibition, giving blood etc.) and put it in a box. Yes, I'm a bit wierd like that, but I bet I'm not the only one. (Go on, admit it in the comments)

Paper tickets get to come home with me, so I have my souvenier of my trip. Oddly then, this change is a win for me! OK, it's no Edmondson ticket, but not such a bad second-best.