A disposable cardboard ticket from the glasgow subway at the glasgow subway, which opened in 1896, it's the third oldest underground the world and probably one of the few that actually runs completely underground the ticket. I got this uh in 2017. I wish i'd opened it sooner because it turns out. This is quite interesting inside because during one of the more recent updates they changed over to smart cards, and i didn't know this - i went in uh got my ticket and uh.

I went over to the turnstiles and there's usually a slot to put it in, and i was thinking where's the slot and then i look at the ticket and thinking. Oh there's no magnetic thing either, but it's a disposable paper ticket. Surely it's not a wireless, a contactless ticket and i felt a bit silly i reached over and put it to the uh, the card reader and it went beep and the gates opened, and i was thinking. Oh, i have to open this, but here it is.

I did open it. Let me show you: what's inside, i put it in a saucer water and gradually rubbed all the layers of cardboard off both sides inside the cardboard. Is this flexible plastic sheet with the antenna on it and a tiny, tiny little chip? Let me give you a closer look at that inside the ticket. Is this foil antenna? It's approximately seven turns uh round it.

Has this tiny little chip here? If you look at the original ticket, it's barely fillable through the ticket. There is the tiny little dimple on it here that you can just barely. If you run your fingers across it, you can barely feel that, but the antenna connects to our side of that chip and there's really not much to see. If you look at this you'll see a bit of splooge round here, i think that's flux, because if you look at the actual inside the ticket itself, it looks shiny and metallic.

You may see the light reflecting more of that area. It's as if there's a thin tinning of soda on it and looking up close there's not much to see it honestly looks like a little black square. That's just been tacked on with soda on either side, but that forms the this is the brains of the operation. I don't know if it's i don't know if they can write to, or it's just a number a serial number that then gets loaded into the system, so it double checks it when you go up and uh scan it, but on the other side of the ticket To create the continuous loop antenna, there is a bridge from the outer side to the inner side and the way that's done.

I have flipped this image. Yes, the chip is made by well. The card is made by confidex i'll, put a link to their website. Confidex is a company that specializes in rfid for stock control and uh transit tickets, but on the other side there is this little metal, strap and they've punched through there's a little three by three array of holes here and the same here and they've, basically just crimped.

It through to make that connection you're, not sure how how they get such a good electrical connection, one side, the other, but that's fundamentally it all we have. If you look at the other side, is the the overlapping pads here for that chip to solder across it's worth mentioning the underground i'll? Show you a little map of the underground here from strathclyde passenger transport executive site, the underground is uh in glasgow. Is an outer loop and an inner loop, and it's not you don't pay for suppose i got on at st enoch, which is highly likely or buchanan street they're. The two most likely place, i'm going to start a journey and you went to well say i was visiting a prop company in ibrox.

For instance, it's just one fare for all the stations. In fact, you can go down there and with you can take a pack lunch with you. You can just ride that all day long, if you want it's a very simple ticketing system. Apparently i didn't know this at the time you get a plastic card as well.

A reusable one and if you go for that option, i think i've not tried this that with the same price as a return, you can ride all day and that's extremely good. That's a very impressive um! Other things worth your note. It does actually pass under the river uh because it covers quite a large area of glasgow um. Other things where the note it runs in 600 volts dc.

The original train uh system when it was first built in 1896, was cable driven. There was a cable in the middle of the track and the driver actually operated a clutch onto that that would grip onto the cable to actually propel it through. What that means is that as you, if this is a station platform, the track actually just gradually rides up to that, and then it rides back down again. The reason for that was it made it easier for the clutch system to actually well.

They didn't need so much. They were breaking because this, the ramp up helped with the braking for the station for the train to come into the station, and it also meant that took a lot of stress off the rope system that it gripped onto if it was actually pointing down the way. The advantage of this since it got electrified is that it goes like a two bob rocket. It is so fast when it takes off if you're not sitting down, you'll, probably end up lying down, because it starts off going downhill and it means it's got massive acceleration.

It was electrified, though, with a 600 volt dc system and a rail that travels outside the tracks, with the collector on it. It's a great system. I really like it. I wrote the uh.

I wrote the original version of it when i was really young after they'd. Converted from the rope to electric and the same trains - and it was very shaky and shuddery - it was great, but the modern ones are very, very slick. I think it's due from modern nation within the next couple of years, but that's interesting. I didn't realize that they could put a smart card into you know i didn't realize they could do that so thin that it's basically in just a paper ticket.

This one is notable. I should shone a light through. I shall shine a light through again. Let's say i focus down on to the ticket, so you can actually see this better.

If you put a light round the back of it uh it's different uh. Let me see if you can, if i can get down closer to this i'll, just zoom in a bit. Can you see that there's? Actually it's not that clear. I shall try again that's slightly better that there's actually three positions of the chip there and there's a on their trip in one of those positions.

I wonder why that is, but very neat. I do like the glasgow underground. I also like the london underground, the underground trains just have a good feeling to them, but there we go it's surprising where the smart card technology finds its way. I was quite impressed definitely like.

It was really just that moment of surprise when a paper ticket actually activated a contactless barrier, very impressive.