I'm not aware of any staff travel concessions ever being given instead of a pay rise- what gave you that idea? The unions would never have gone for that!
Not exactly, but in the early 1970s there was a lot of dissatisfaction about (clerical) pay rates. There was a comparability study with the civil service, and the rates for CO1 to CO4 (the grades then) were exactly the same as Clerical Assistant/C Officer/Executive Officer/Higher EO. (A friend had recently left the railway to go to the civil service so I knew exactly what the pay rates were.)
We were told that as we got our passes/concessionary travel (4 times a year in those days) and the Civil Service got a non-contributory pension it was all OK. Except that a lot of railway staff didn't use their passes, but we paid 15% of salary for effectively the same pension. Not a good deal! So our "free passes" most certainly were paid for - by foregoing about 15% of our salary. On top of that inflation (19.1% in 1974, 24.9% in 1975, 15.1% in 1976) eroded pay badly too. One year there was not enough money for a pay rise so an extra day's annual leave was given instead (up from 20!) - to be taken when it suited the railway and in fact added to to Boxing day. So I also always bite when people complain that railway people were feather-bedded in terms of annual leave.
Additional boxes were given for length of service but that was additional to any rise. As retired staff, there is no cost for your travel facilities so it doesn't count as a benefit in kind. If you want to qualify for delay repay, you need to pay for your tickets- priv tickets do qualify.
I have been retired since 1999 and have not paid any tax on my free travel boxes. When I was working I never paid any tax for any concessionary travel facilities although it may have changed?
If you worked for a non-TOC after privatisation then when you retired your employer had to cough up about £1000 (maybe quite a bit more, I can't remember) for your travel facilities in retirement - and the next year you had to pay the tax on that amount - even though you might not have any income!
PS The BREL complication is that after they were separated from the railway the unions sold the travel concessions for a pay rise. A lot of the staff were very unhappy about that so eventually those individuals were allowed to buy them back (out of their pay) on a personal basis, so I think some individuals might still be paying yearly in retirement.