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Treasures from the bottom of the drawer:
Transit tickets and passes

I guess most of us tram- and train freaks stow our used (validated) tickets away. This doesn't always result in a collection, but it's nice to go through these memorabilia sometimes. Here are a couple of my favorites:

The first tickets which I have put aside as a kid and are still there were the ones here, from Czechoslovakia in 1983 and 84. They were used on the funicular between Stary Smokovec and Hrebienok.

The tickets for the suspension railways between Tatranska Lomnica-Skalatne Pleso and Skalatne Pleso-Lomnicki Stit were almost identical..

Two one-fare tickets from Prague, 1987. The one with punched holes was validated on a bus, the one with printed numbers was used on the metro.

In 1991 and 92 our high school participated in a student exchange holiday programme with a high school in the german city of Düren. This is when I used this "VRS Kundenkarte" pass.

Two special passes from the Great Boulevard tramlines of Budapest: in 1987 our electric tramways celebrated their 100th anniversary (left). Ten years later the reconstruction programme of the boulevard (or at least the Pest parts of it) was finished, which was celebrated with special rides, with a less childish-looking pass.

Sometimes my friends give me old tickets, too. This BSzKRt weekly tram pass for example was donated by Mr. Mihály Óvári, amoing several other interesting tickets. Thank you!

The evolution of Budapest one-fare titckets, not from the start and definately not to the end (older ones are at the bottom, newer ones on top):

Until the nineties yellow tickets were valid on trams, trolley buses, the metro, suburban railways and the rack railway, while the blue ones were used on buses. Latter have costed more, so this was a very fine "environmental protectionist" system - it was cheaper to take electric transportation means. Then suddenly the differences dissappeared, and everything costed as much as the bus. Clever, eh? :) On these tickets you can also notice the devaluation of our currency, the forint - the tickets got more and more expensive. There were also slight changes in size and design, too.

The change of a political system on the tickets for the Buda Castle District funicular: the upper one features the old BKV crest with a small red star in the middle, the other bears the new one, without a red star, but with the Holy Hungarian Crown..

This pass was handed out on the first public ride of the ex-Hannover TW6000 tramcars on 13.07.2001.

I love first day tickets, like these from Vienna: one from the inauguration of the first underground line in 1978, the other celebrated the currently last extension of the same line (which will be extended to Leopoldau soon, so I guess there will be another first day ticket:).

First day ticket for the new Nottingham tram system, the NET, donated to me by Stephen Dee. Too bad that these thermo-paper tickets fade away so quickly!

It's not just first days: a last tram week ticket from London, 1952.

Vienna before and after the conversion of Austria to the usage of Euro: the same pass once costed 50 Schillings (equal to 3.63 Euro), now it costs 4 Euro. The tickets on the left were printed by ticket wending machines, the others were bought in a shop. By the way, nice design, if you ask me!

A reprint of an old tram ticket, also from Vienna.

A big leap through Europe, and we're in Leningrad (left) and then in St. Petersbourgh. The same city, but different times with different tickets - and higher prices...

Edmondson type tickets are still used in Hungary on small railway stations, but this one dates from 1984, when they were used more throughtly in the country. I definately think this was the most attractive of all railway ticket formats: it's small and durable, unlike the big computer-printed sheets fashioned today.

This "Notfahrkarte" was given to me in the buffet (!) of a tram running on "big railway" tracks: the Hanauer Strassenbahn AG rented two tram-train cars from Karlsruhe in 2004 to experiment with them on a service between Frankfurt am Main and Rüsselsheim/Opelwerke.

And let's conclude this page with a whole year of Budapest monthly passes! These are a bit old-fashioned, but they look good together in large quantities :)