I just recently got this addition to my ET&WNC-related collection:



I googled "Drewry Ticket" and no explanation came up. Can someone explain to me what that actually means?

There is a town in North Carolina by that name, but I'm not sure that is what is being referred to, it looks to be a bit far from the ET&WNC: https://northcarolina.hometownlocator.c ... drewry.cfm

I posted this question elsewhere and someone thought it was named after the person who invented the type of ticket. As for the town name, that is nowhere near where this railroad ever ran.

Here is the explanatory link (to a short bio of George Drewry) I posted on the parallel thread at ngdiscussion.net:

https://books.google.com/books?id=w-YxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA995&lpg=PA995&dq=%22drewry%22+ticket+railroad&source=bl&ots=R7dU-X-VZd&sig=ACfU3U2Hx2jHbODrBsupBjxdFrlvTIhE4g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjpo93i37_lAhVQmeAKHZCxDwMQ6AEwBHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22drewry%22%20ticket%20railroad&f=false

Really cool info and a very cool ticket.

I totally get it.. but I miss the old style of tickets that tourist railroads like TVRM and Strasburg used to give out.

I'm not sure if it's changed yet, but if you paid cash on board the train on Metra, you still got an old-fashioned ticket punched with date and direction of travel by the conductor. For me, it's worth the on-board surcharge for that experience!

Bruce Prior (BCP) posted to the on the parallel thread at ngdiscussion.net a link to the patent #876,794 granted to Mr. Drewry in 1908.

For those who don't care to follow the link, download the patent, and read it:

The ticket is intended to go along with a special form of cutter (also described briefly in the patent) and is designed to prevent either passenger or agent ticket fraud. The idea is, instead of 'tearing off a stub', to provide a list of the destinations on the ticket and arrange to cut it with a "V" pointing to the relevant station column. Then both the stub and the presumably-retained ticket will be complementarily shaped, and either can be seen at a glance to have been 'to' a particular station ... which should correspond with the fare revenue. Since both 'halves' of the indicator are cut from the ticket, it would be extremely difficult to fake this by trying to, say, cut and reglue the little 'prong' or to fill in and then re-cut a V in a different place.

Presumably as with ticket punches each issued "Drewry cutter" had a slightly different pattern in the V that it would cut, so it could easily be distinguished which conductor had taken up which tickets.