little malc Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 One or two of you have mentioned these machines in other threads. As a bus inspector at that time, we had to service them, and hated it! The idea was, if you had the right change for your journey, you could drop the coins into the machine, it would then print a ticket with a fascimile of the coins on it. They were situated just to the right of the entrance door, the idea behind them being a much speedier loading of the bus, allowing the driver to just deal with passengers who needed change, or had a query about the fare. The buses fitted with these had a large yellow plaque on the front so the passenger would know it had a Videmat machine on board as it aproached the stop. Unfortunately, they had a habit of jamming, when this happened, the driver radioed through to control, who then sent one of us in a van to meet the bus at one of the terminal points. We then attempted to fish the offending coin out with a pair of tweezers, but if we could'nt clear the jam, it meant replacing the machine with a new one. These machines weighed about one hundred-weight, and they were smooth sided! lots of muttering took place under the breath when we had to change one. Often, the jam would be caused by some berk dropping something like a Pontefract cake in, or other foriegn object, we were really glad when they were scrapped. If it was near the end of a day, and the cash vault was full, they weighed even more, ah! happy days!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damon Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Now THAT'S the sort of post I love to see on this forum! Absolutely brilliant mate - I can well appreciate your frustration with the late great Videmat machine. However, as a kid, they just made our family's weekly journey to town on the 59 service (which we caught halfway up Carterknowle Road) even better. It sounds utterly pathetic now, but me and my sister would fight to be the one to drop in the coins and collect the ticket. And behold, the ticket was a photocopy of the ACTUAL COINS!! It was like the eighth wonder of the world. OK, I exaggerate. But only a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saxon51 Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Took me ages to realise that the coin 'impressions' were mirror images!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deano Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Was always great when you could get away with putting in say a half pence or a penny instead of 2 p,seemed like a big saving at the time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Ahh the Videmat...the highlight of schooldays was the competition to see who could get the longest ticket by pouring as many half pence coins down it as you had saved up for the job. I think we even overpaid the fare to win so could never understand why the inspector used to get mad when he wanted to see our tickets and these huge streamers would come out of our pockets!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milx Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 I dont know if anyone can help me with this. I remember around the early 80's Vidimat machines on SYT buses. Namely the 60 bus, but they must have been on other ones too. There were for when there was no Bus Conductor. You got on the bus and filed right, whereup on you dropped money into a hole. You rticket sprung up with an ink copy of the coins you just put in. I think they were called vidimat machines. If anyone has ANY details at all, please reply or here, or better still email me Nic.Storr@ntlworld.com Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damon Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 The Videmat machine. When you were about 7 or 8, it truly was a wonder of the modern age. More discussion about it in this thread: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8206&highlight=videmat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milx Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 Thank you! Nic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 Originally posted by Damon The Videmat machine. When you were about 7 or 8, it truly was a wonder of the modern age. More discussion about it in this thread: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8206&highlight=videmat Thanks Damon, threads merged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timo Posted August 18, 2004 Share Posted August 18, 2004 I remember catching the number 4 bus outside Concord Middle School [shiregreen] one day in the early seventies, and deciding to try and "pull a fast one" on the ludicrous machines. I deposited a disc-shaped football token from Shoot! magazine instead of the proper coinage. Unfortunately, a typically dour Sheffield bus inspector got on [just my luck...] and asked to see everyone's tickets. He seemed unimpressed to say the least to see the face of Bobby Moore instead of Her Majesty. Needless to say, I was ceremoniously dumped at the top of Newman Road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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