Yelloway coach ticket set - Parts 1, 2 of 4

Until the dawn of on-line booking for coach journeys coach service operators like Yelloway had one or maybe more booking agents in just about every town.
Such agents included bus station offices and travel agencies but there were scores of small businesses where tickets could be booked. Newsagents were perhaps amongst the most numerous.

The agent held stocks of official tickets and would write out a ticket for the passenger who would pay the appropriate fare. Depending on the circumstances the agent might in the first instance have to make a phone call to the Chart Room at Rochdale to ascertain if seats were available otherwise the ticket would be issued and a confirmation copy would be sent in by post.

When I first started in the Chart Room at Yelloway in January 1967 there was still one booking agent that didn’t possess a telephone and that agent had to complete a seat requisition form which was sent to Rochdale by post. Booking references were issued for the required journeys and the form returned to the agent also by post. The agent then issued the tickets accordingly. This was the method that had been employed for many years before telephones became commonplace and the agent in question was the last of a dying breed!

Yelloway named their express service ticket ‘universal’ and they came in two formats of ticket books. The main offices and agents with a large throughput of ticket issue had ticket books with four tickets per page whereas smaller agents and road staff had ticket books with just one ticket per page.

A ticket set comprised four leaves. Carbon paper sheets were placed between each of the leaves of the ticket set:
1) The Confirmation copy - The larger (upper) part was sent to the Chart Room and the smaller (lower) part was retained until the account statement was prepared and was then attached to the statement and sent with payment after the agent had deducted the commission due to them.
2) Outward journey ticket
3) Return journey ticket (this was retained in the ticket book if the passenger was making a one-way/single journey).
4) A copy retained in the ticket book

The set shown in this series of images is a pre-decimal currency ticket showing Pounds (£), Shillings (s) and Pence (d). When decimal currency was introduced the cash columns changed to Pounds (£) and (new) Pence (p). When timetables began to be displayed using the 24 hour clock system the separate A.M and P.M boxes became one box.