Nostalgia & History > Hat / Seat Checks

A few days ago on the Passenger Board there was a discussion about Seat Checks.
Here are three I pulled out of the file boxes.
The first two are part of the Conductor's ticket envelope.
The third a simple preprinted one.

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A Burlington Lines cash fare receipt.

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My personal experience with hat checks:

http://wx4.org/to/foam/warstories/safety_discipline_employee/oops.html


-E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:
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> My personal experience with hat checks:
>
> http://wx4.org/to/foam/warstories/safety_disciplin
> e_employee/oops.html
>
>
> -E.O.

Not quite as bad as the story I have heard of the Milwaukee Road
crewmember who worked one of the westbound UP City Trains out of Chicago
and took the ticket pouch (with all the tickets) with him when he detrained at Savanna.

>Not quite as bad as the story I have heard of the Milwaukee Road
crewmember who worked one of the westbound UP City Trains out of Chicago
and took the ticket pouch (with all the tickets) with him when he detrained at Savanna.<

OUCH!

-E.O.

SP Conductors called them "Hat Checks". Don't know why.

Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
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> SP Conductors called them "Hat Checks". Don't know
> why.
>
> Nudge

I have seen pictures from the days when men wore dress hats
of monthly tickets stuck in the hat bands of regular commuters.

Maybe the term has some derivation from that practice.

On the SP out of LAUPT, at least on my times, we didn't have preprinted hat checks showing destinations, we would write in the sta M.P. on these little slips of heavy paper maybe 1/2" X 3". At first I kept a "cheat sheet" inside my pill box showing the MP for each stop. After a number trips I had them all pretty much memorized. I can still recall a few: Santa Barb-367, San Luis Obispo-248, Salinas-114, San Jose-47, etc.

Once we had notified the passenger that their stop was next, we would pull the check so we would know the new passenger occupying the same seat had not had their transportation punched.

J.P.

Cabhop Wrote:
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> On the SP out of LAUPT, at least on my times, we
> didn't have preprinted hat checks showing
> destinations, we would write in the sta M.P. on
> these little slips of heavy paper maybe 1/2" X 3".
> At first I kept a "cheat sheet" inside my pill
> box showing the MP for each stop. After a number
> trips I had them all pretty much memorized. I can
> still recall a few: Santa Barb-367, San Luis
> Obispo-248, Salinas-114, San Jose-47, etc.
>
> Once we had notified the passenger that their stop
> was next, we would pull the check so we would know
> the new passenger occupying the same seat had not
> had their transportation punched.
>
> J.P.

Interesting practice of writing the MP instead of the station on the check.
It is fascinating to learn how railroads used different practices to accomplish
the same thing. No right way or wrong way; whatever worked best for them is what
they did. That's why I like trainorders.com, I can learn something interesting every day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/14 06:44 by Englewood.