| As
well as single tickets and returns we sold
weekly tickets. These allowed regulars to
buy one ticket on a Monday or Tuesday for
one journey each way until Saturday. Initially
two of the journeys were free but later this
was reduced to one and then the discount was
abolished. Soon after I started, weekly and
return tickets were phased out. Conductors
were instructed to collect tickets when used
for their final journey so that usage could
be assessed. Passengers would argue that we
were stealing the ticket they had paid for,
although it always remained company property
and was only really a token. |
 |
| Weekly
tickets were carried loose and overprinted
with the price, date and fare stage by inserting
them in the front of the ticket machine. If
the ticket was put in at an angle the extreme
left of the price missed the ticket but of
course the value still registered on the machine.
But if you didn't set the price up in the
first place ..... |
|
| At
one point there was a five-day weekly ticket
of twelve and eight. If this price was set
on the machine and the ticket was printed
at an angle the one was missing. Having spotted
this, one conductor started deliberately printing
the tickets at an angle but only setting two
shillings and eight pence on the dials. This
gave him a profit of ten shillings (half of
a pound) at a time when our weekly wage was
about thirteen pounds. He printed a lot of
tickets and made a lot of money. |
|
 |
|
| Naturally
this showed up in the takings
whenever he was on a bus on a
Monday morning but although I
could spot these tickets easily
and so could a conductress from
Andover who I talked to about
it, the inspectors could not. |
|
| It was clear
from analysis of the takings where
he was making the money and a
lot of tickets were collected
and examined but the inspectors
simply did not know what thet
were looking for. He was eventually
caught issuing a three penny ticket
instead of a one shilling and
three penny and sacked! |
|
| How to spot
it? The problem with this particular
fiddle was that there were only
two dials on the ticket machine,
one for the shillings and one
for the pence. This means that
the 12 had the same width as the
2 on its own. To put it the other
way, the two on the dud ticket
was too wide as can be seen on
the lower ticket. Obvious when
you know. |
|
|
|