Railroad Forums 

Discussion related to commuter rail and rapid transit operations in the Chicago area including the South Shore Line, Metra Rail, and Chicago Transit Authority.

Moderators: metraRI, JamesT4

 #256736  by ryanbytes
 
It's a reduced fare magstripe card. I got it from a ticket agent at Randolph. I've never seen one before. Is this a common thing and I've just missed it in all my rides or are the machines going to change?

 #256869  by doepack
 
I'm not sure what a reduced fare ticket looks like, but it shouldn't have a magnetic stripe on it; offhand, I'd say the ticket agent mistakenly issued it to you. Just show it to the conductor on the train, and tell him/her that you bought it downtown. Don't worry, the turnstiles aren't coming back...

 #256894  by metraRI
 
When I used MED in Feb. and purchased a reduced ticket, it was a ticket with a magnetic strip, not the usual reduced ticket on diesel lines. Other than that, it was treated like a normal ticket.

 #256902  by ryanbytes
 
The conductor didn't blink an eye at it. I've never seen one before and I was just really wondering what the purpose was. You can't buy one from a machine so there's no reason that I know of to have a ticket like this. It looks cool. For some reason on the back at the bottom edge it has a place to write a name and phone number. Does this exist on regular magstripe card?

 #257168  by EricL
 
Aha. I've occasionally seen people using these on diesel lines and wondered where they got them.

 #257375  by meh
 
I've also noticed that the last few times I've bought TBI (ticket by internet) ten-ride tickets, they've mailed out ones with the magnetic strips on the back, even though I specify that I'm purchasing them for the Milwaukee North. The conductors don't seem to mind, however, and just punch them the same as a regular ticket.

 #257587  by MACTRAXX
 
Everyone: Speaking of ME tickets-are the tickets with the magnetic coding still being sold? I would imagine that METRA would use up the remaining magnetic ticket stock before they began to sell the ticket types used on the rest of the system. Have seat clips been installed on the Highliner 1 cars? I also noticed that METRA upgraded the 70s era ticket machines-do they still vend a magnetic ticket? Are there any "dinosaur" turnstiles left on ME that have not yet been removed? Just curious...MACTRAXX

 #257668  by byte
 
I can't fully answer your other questions, but the H1s do have seat clips, similarly placed in comparison to the diesel bilevels.

 #258541  by JamesT4
 
I just brought a 10 ride to go to 75th st. and it still has a magnetic strips on it, and the zone says Zone B1 instead of just Zone B.

Just as that I had seen a person had a weekend pass on the UP-North Line, but it was not a normal weekend pass, it was one that the guy brought from the ME ticket vending machine, and the conductor had a time, untill he seen the dates for the pass was printed, and told the man where he got this kind of ticket from, because he never seen it before.

I also use the magnetic tickets on the diesel lines also.