Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: ticket

Here's what was left of the ticket window, left pretty much as it was.

This is the satirical obituary I mentioned earlier for the Luzna ticket office. "As her beloved mother's eyes are dripping tears over the last ticket as the end of last light goes out in the closed window... With deep sorrow we announce to all our friends and loyal passengers, she has passed away from us our dear and beloved daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, great grandmother. The Personal Ticket Window of the railway station at Luzna u Rakovníka. Inflicted on us suddenly without reason, or fault of our own on September 27th, 2010 at the age of nearly 140 years. May the wishes of the deceased's last goodbye take place quietly in the circle of the last few survivors. On behalf of the afflicted survivors: the railway station staff at Luzna u Rakovníka and the traveling public."

All of Praha Hlavni Nadrazi's ticket booths used to look like this, with the exception of the long lines of people being harrassed by bums that smelled so bad you could smell them a long time before you could see them. In the past year, the rebuilding of Hlavni Nadrazi has progressed enough so that now none of these are still in use. Instead, a complete German-style travel centre has been set up in the basement, along with still more retail shops to go along with all of the retailers and restaurants on the first and second levels.

In the past two years or so, I've noticed a really cool 19th-Century-style gas balloon (as opposed to a modern hot air balloon) that's been used for sightseeing over the Mala Strana. The last time I saw it, some idiot had thought it would be a good idea to cover it with grafitti, but this was when it still looked good, there on the upper right. The building in the foreground is the Malostranska Metro station, and the Metrocafe.

Here's where it was, just to show I'm not making this story up....

I've forgotten the full details of why I was in Dejvicka on this particular day, but often this is the first Metro station I get to after flying into Praha Ruzyne airport, although such was not the case on this day. Rather, I discovered a BR (British, Network Rail, etc.) train ticket dropped on the platform. Living in a major European city post-Schengen, you see all sorts of tickets from all the EU countries lying on the ground, but I liked this one because it reminded me of Britain. It wasn't the first one I had seen, and it probably won't be the last. I've also seen Paris and Brussels metro tickets lying on the floor of Prague Metro stations.

I thought the ticket machine might look good in black and white, so here's my take on it.

This is one of the many ticket machine designs that I've seen in Europe, with this one having a map to indicate where each station is. If you want such and such a station, you obviously pick your fare by clicking on the appropriate station button. Regrettably, I noticed that a line seemed to have been abandoned since this machine was installed.