TMA Metlink Handy Hints seriesEarliest known issue: 18th December 2003Page last modified/checked: Thursday, March 11, 2004From mid-December 2003, the Handy Hints series took an entirely new and interesting turn. Over the next 2 1/2 months, 8 additional and 4 pre-existing Handy Hint slogans appeared in what looks to have been a trial of tickets supplied by Ticket Manufacturers Australia of Wetherill Park, NSW. These "trial" tickets were placed into all ticket machines between Balaclava and Sandringham (excepting BOM's) and can be identified by a new "T" designator. A magnetic strip rather than slurry strip is used on these tickets. Of the 8 additional slogans, the first 4 slogans (designator T-a) comprise of 2 which had appeared briefly on the 098 bus issues in mid 2002, and 2 which were previously only known from images on the Victrip site. The T-b designator were a repeat of the four original Handy Hints messages. Interestingly the additional T-c designator hints were until this time only known from images on the Victrip site. In late February 2004 a further group of four Handy Hints appeared with a T-d designator. These are a system wide issue and do not appear to be part of the Sandrinham line trial, which by this time also appears to have concluded, and the TMA Handy Hints had become a general rail and tram based issue. 2 of the T-d hints had previously been found on 098 bus issues and as images on the Victrip website. The remaining two messages were entirely new. In each strip of four handy hints, the designator number "3" does not change, making it impossible to establish the sequence of the messages within each designator. We are not sure what the numeral "3" actually identifies! All four hints have been found as odd numbers, proving that on a random basis, each message started as the first or third ticket within each box of 1,000. (The four scans of the T-b series illustrates this fact, as odd numbers appear on each ticket).
The T-a series
The T-b series
The T-c series
The T-d series
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