How did Penalty fares/travelling without a ticket work pre 1949

WesternLancer said:

Rather incriminating himself there…

I don’t think this forum would have recommended that. Even 6 months
after the incident

I assume he therefore had some sort of ‘disorder’ if that’s what we’d call it now

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Overweening arrogance.

He called it his "spiritual vagrancy". Gives it as his reason why he never got an an academic appointment at at Oxford despite years of applying. I think there was probably another reason.

ChiefPlanner said:

On board tool box (back in the day) , carried an emergency axe

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What were the tools on the two ends of the handle of a carriage key used for? Could one of these open a WC?

contrex said:

This puts me in mind of CEM Joad, a famous 'brainy bloke on the BBC' in the 1930s and 1940s. He liked to be called 'Professor Joad' although he never was one. In 1948 he was caught travelling from Waterloo to Salisbury without a ticket, hoping to short-fare to Exeter. He was fined £2 and ordered to pay 25 guineas costs, in total £27.5.0d, £27.25 in new money. Apparently he'd been doing it habitually for some time and the railway had set a trap for him. It made headlines, he was sacked from the BBC, and lost the chance of a peerage.

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Apologies for pure pedantry, since it's not of any significance, but the conversion isn't quite right.
Costs = 25 guineas = £25 + 25s = £26 5s = £26.25.
With £2 fine, total £28.25.

DelW said:

Apologies for pure pedantry, since it's not of any significance, but the conversion isn't quite right.
Costs = 25 guineas = £25 + 25s = £26 5s = £26.25.
With £2 fine, total £28.25.

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You're quite right. I'm blaming it on the heat-wave! As I was 18 years and 10 months old on D-Day I have no excuse. Altering my post.

contrex said:

You're quite right. I'm blaming it on the heat-wave! As I was 18 years and 10 months old on D-Day I have no excuse. Altering my post.

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I spent part of my career checking and approving (or not) engineering calculations, and old habits die hard! I automatically check calculations I see (even if just roughly), which various friends tell me is often an annoying habit .

DelW said:

old habits die hard! I automatically check calculations I see

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I'm the same, only with me it's spelling and grammar. A career spent proof-reading. So I understand!

Rescars said:

What were the tools on the two ends of the handle of a carriage key used for? Could one of these open a WC?

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I think one was to turn all the lights on a train; certainly up too and including Mk 1 stock there was a panel in each vestibule. YThisn had push buttons for lights on and off in that coach, with a socket at the bottom marked 'Trim Lights' for the special end (circular with hollow and spirit at the centre) that turned all the other coaches' lights on and off. I think that if you unscrewed the plate showing 'vacant - engaged' underneath there was a carriage lock, so you could open the locks. Possible the bothers one was for unlocking the sliding vestibules door - the ones just inside the corridor connections. But it was all a long time ago for me, might well be wrong.