Great Western Coffee Shop

With the rain yesterday stopping me getting into the garden or, for much of the day, following the cricket I decided to have a much needed sort out around the house and came across this.

(https://mbob.co.uk/rforum/2003tik.jpg)

It dates from 2003, is six inches long and I seem to recall the accompanying travel ticket was the same size.   I believe I bought them at the old travel centre in Reading.  With some tickets now on mobile phones we have almost gone back to them being the same size (only heavier)!

A TIS called Tribute IIRC?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_(ticket) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_(ticket))

Only lasted about ten years or so as a hoped for replacement of APTIS, but although the larger tickets were good for including extra information, the widespread adoption of ticket barriers, which they were too big for, was their downfall.  They were also quite slow to print and issue tickets compared to their predecessor.

I remember them as being the same size as a number of European and airline tickets. Eurostar ticket gates took this size of ticket, as did SNCF's cancellation machines.

Also known as ATB.
We had one installed in Truro right at the start of Eurostar and for the first three months we outsold everywhere except Waterloo International.

I got a whole load of these through the post when a fledgling third party retailer beginning with T was regularly offering 50% off. If I recall it could be combined with a railcard discount so worked out dirt cheap even if I didn't take some of the anticipated trips.

A lot of the journeys were short hops, so quite a few guards were surprised when I produced this style of ticket.

Any journey involving the tube would be provided with an APTIS gate pass in the envelope.