All railway employees would have been able to purchase privilege tickets for their partner/spouse and children/dependents. They would not be able to obtain tickets for other relatives including nieces.
How effectively would it have been policed though? If she was a niece on the father's side, she'd have the same surname. (And as they're Welsh, both sides of the family would have been called Jones anyway...) And what would have been the logistics of priv tickets then? Uncle would have applied for the ticket and then possibly posted it to her?
University days classmate was son of one of these, and had been left in no doubt that any fiddling of the ticket, first class no less, was worse than being a Great Train Robber.
Wick to All Channel Ports was pretty good.
Well train fares were lower relative to income then so the wherewithal might have been more achievable. Tho perhaps less easy to access cheap advanced purchase fares than can be done now. But the did exist. Apex fares.
Priv tickets I don’t think involved applying for one for a particular journey. Not unless it was for overseas priv rate travel. Tho I’ll stand corrected.
That's my recollection too. At Management Staff grade 4 about this time I had a network "status pass" for unlimited first class travel, which became a taxable benefit at privatisation worth about £2k of income I think. I was in Research so the grading was different, but for comparison I recall a vacancy at MS4 for station manager Kings Cross. I think for higher grades the pass was still provided as a medal (mine was like a credit card). MS3 got a regional status pass, Standard only I think, and grades below that various numbers of boxes which each gave two consecutive days of travel. Those not entitled to a status pass could get a "priv season" between nearest stations to home and work, but I think had to pay for this. In BR days status passes could also be used for duty travel, and those not entitled to one could sign out a "duty pass". Graduate trainees got a two year all-network pass (Standard only) and encouragement to familiarise themselves with the railway in their own time. After privatisation travel facilities were for leisure and travel to work (at an ex-BR company) only.
Now you have reminded me of something!
That certainly rings a bell, think you're right here.
12 miles in the London area, which went up to 40 miles some time before 1988, when I had a not much fun commute from Harrow to East Croydon/Swanley.
In the 1980's I recall these regional and network passes being referred to as a "leather pass" - though they were just printed card. Does anyone know if this was an official description or obsolete terminology? And why "leather"? Had they been supplied in a special wallet in a previous era perhaps? Surely not hand-tooled on offcuts from the carriage works or something similar!
London weighting lol.
Could that be the kind of leather fob with a metal badge coupled to it (closely or so it flaps on its own) like the branded ones car dealers add to car keys? In the USA these are commonly used for official badges, such as taxis or police. Here less so, though this is a London taxi driver's one. Did the railways once have similar metal badges of status or authority, then later when carried but not worn visibly they were attached to a leather fob, and the name stayed in use long after the badges?
That's a good one, I might use that.
If you'd nicked something, why would you then go to a police station and hand it in? Perhaps the little cogs of the policemen's brains might have got clogged up as they turned over the possibilities...
A friend of mine tells the tale of him witnessing someone refusing to take a priv ticket out of a plastic wallet.
