This trip I’ve been experimenting with a new toy: I’ve created a dedicated ticket carrier. I call it Ticky.

This is a reTerminal Sticky, a relatively cheap eink display run with an ESP32. The company openly encourages you to hack and replace the firmware.

I then upload my passkey or PDF tickets to an app I have on my server, that recreates them as an image the right size to display on the screen. For Interrail, I use a second device, either my iPad or my laptop, to scan the barcode off my phone, as they’ve disabled screenshots.

When I push the top button on the device, it hooks up to the hotspot on my phone and downloads the new images.

I’ve also put a summary of the next few trips on trainlog onto it, as well as a map of today’s trip and the journey as a whole.

It’s worked so far, Ryanair have accepted it, and all the British trains I’ve been on have too.