What began life as a way for Portadown man James Swan to boost his income during a recession has grown to become one of Northern Ireland’s most unique craft businesses — one built on nostalgia, history, and thousands upon thousands of old railway tickets!
Back in 2012, with the effects of recession still keenly felt, James — who also works full-time with a Belfast-based kitchen design company — found himself trying to navigate his bills and financial responsibilities on reduced weekly hours.
Speaking to Armagh I, he explained that he was constantly trying to find ways to “up the salary”, when one fateful day at Nutts Corner car boot sale, he happened upon a collection of “vintage” train tickets.
“I didn’t know what they were at first but I just thought they were class,” he said. “They were authentic railway tickets from back in the day. I knew people would appreciate these.
“I remember thinking if I can get hold of loads of these, I could put them in frames and people might like them.”
It was a simple idea. He was on track for success. James’ only immediate issue was that he needed more tickets.
“I got chatting to a couple of guys who were railway collectors and they had all these tickets they were happy to sell off,” said James. And, when he says “all these tickets”, James might just be inadvertently playing down the quantity… because when asked if there was a finite amount, he said he had “hundreds of thousands” tightly-bound and boxed-up at home.
Continued James: “Most tickets I sell are all unused from the 1950s to 1960s when the station closed down or else it was overstocked.
“There was a shift from shillings and pence to pound sterling, so at that stage they were boxed away and left in storage for 60 – 70 years.”
Knowing how much people delight in a little nostalgia and history, James committed to his idea and launched his new business, ‘Tickets Please NI’ with his debut appearances at craft fairs… to “see how it goes!”
Fast forward 10 years, James’ framed original tickets are selling with several physical stockists and from his website, where he has then been known to post out orders as far as the US and Canada.
“There’s even a pub in New York and they have a few of my tickets hanging up!” he said excitedly.
Over the course of a decade and more, he has acquired an impressive amount of historical railway knowledge. It helps him to roughly date his tickets, which have been left blank all those years.
“I can work out a rough date,” he added. “Anything that says ‘UTA’, Ulster Transport Authority is from the 1970s, 1960s and then after that the NI Railways bought over in early 70s so I can work out a rough timeframe.”
Recently branching out into the supply of framed luggage labels, James can also use his knowledge to date these too, explaining: “The luggage labels, the bigger ones, are from the Great Norther Railway; they are 1920s, 1930s and are quite nice in the frames as well!”
James may very well be the only person in Northern Ireland selling original train tickets in this way. So niche is the business that he was even invited to take part in BBC docuseries ‘Walk the Line’ with host, Barra Best in 2021.
He said the programme really helped broaden the public’s awareness of the old lines and stations, admitting that before he became involved himself, he “didn’t know how much people depended on it”.
Said James: “I love chatting about it and you hear some stories about people being on the last train to leave from Armagh or Omagh. Or people in Portstewart have memories of going on the steam train for school excursions with their heads out the windows. Those tickets always sell well for that reason.”
While he has many thousands of tickets in his possession, James explains that not all stations have equal amounts remaining – and because they are authentic, once they are gone… they’re gone!
“At the end of the day these tickets should have been disposed of,” he said. “I get the train to Belfast every day for work and I use my phone… it’s my pass. It’s moved on and this is the last of the proper tickets that you would have had back then.”
To protect the longevity of his business, James has added the luggage labels, cushions and mugs to his repertoire.
He’s always happy to answer questions and endeavours to source tickets for particular stations if none are available on-site.
He said: “If anyone ever has any questions I’m happy to chat and work out what they need. We can build bigger frames with several tickets together for example. I’ll always answers questions if people are unsure of what they need.”
