I have always had an interest in railways. Both as a practical means of transportation, and the romantic, nostalgic aspect of train travel. The railways, like a number of others industries in the 19th and 20th centuries, used “checks”, “cheques” or “tallies”. These are a special type of token, used by employees, and individually numbered to each employee.

Some pieces were used to denote who had a particular tool. These Great Western Railway cheques helpfully include their purpose on them. This is a pay cheque. Wikipedia has a description of their use: “The one-sided identification cheques were usually drawn from the wages office on a Thursday, prior to the Friday payday. The cheques would then be exchanged for a payslip, and the wages paid on signature”

This piece was issued to employed 199, by the Great Western Railway in the United Kingdom.

The reverse of many of these pieces is blank.

The Great Western Railway was one of the first railways in the United Kingdom, being formed in 1833 by one of the most prominent figures of the industrial revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

These continued to be used into the British Railways era (post 1948). Here is a photo of a GWR 2-6-2T No. 5521 arrives at Lydney junction. Image courtesy Geograph / Chris Allen: