Ticket clippers question

[edwin_m]

Yes, and the ability to trace a journey in this manner forms a plot point in Dorothy L Sayers’ Five Red Herrings.

Wasn't that the one where...

Spoiler

...Lord Peter Wimsey cracked the case on discovering that the LMS stamp was the wrong typeface and the journey that was a supposed alibi had not actually taken place?

 

[tspaul26]

Wasn't that the one where...

Spoiler

...Lord Peter Wimsey cracked the case on discovering that the LMS stamp was the wrong typeface and the journey that was a supposed alibi had not actually taken place?

Bingo, although I rather think the television miniseries with Ian Carmichael is the better for omitting the bulk of the train timetable plot elements.

 

[davetheguard]

Two pages attached here. This is from a fairly hefty BR binder dating from 1983/4. There are also many different shapes that aren't listed, which may have dated prior to this guide which may have been used unofficially after they ceased to have any meaning. For example, I have seen a star shaped punch for sleeper berth tickets dating from the 70s/80s and this isn't shown in the guide. The Eastern Region page is missing E4, E6 and E9 but has the others, indicating these may have been withdrawn from official use prior to 83/4. The dumbbells mentioned in @CW2 post above do feature on one of the scanned pages, but with a number 8 for Inverness. @L401CJF post does refer to the rubber stamped style, which is possibly derived from BR embossed stampers which had a very similar design and also referred to in this guide too.

Brilliant! Got any more?

 

[150219]

Brilliant! Got any more?

Sure...

 

[Ashley Hill]

I always aspired to get a set of those Peterborough ones just because they look rude. Never got any though

 

[kje7812]

WR Ticket Examiners Nippers up to the 1970's punched a small round hole and embossed a letter and number which indicated the Station where the Ticket inspector or Guard were based. "A1" was the code for Paddington.
A "V" shaped, or rectangle with a "V" shaped end, clip was a Ticket Cancelling Clip.

Do you happen to know if there's a place where these are listed?
The pair I have have F12 on them. Sadly, they are worn and the hole punch is unreliable and thus I use ticket barrier grips (they are stamped GWR).

 

[pdeaves]

Side interest: just last week, the Hull Trains ticket inspector was using a heart-shaped punch. I have no idea whether this was official issue (the company logo having a heart in it) or someone's own initiative.

 

[LowLevel]

My issued set of official company gripping irons was a Banner single hole punch which I think is still in it's box somewhere

 

[Ashley Hill]

We we told not to punch tickets a long time ago. Two of the reasons given were damaging the magnetic strip and litter from the clippings. I still carry mine but only use them where I suspect a dubious passenger may try and use it again.

 

[ScottGallagher]

Was there ever one with the BR double arrow, I have a feeling there was , say mid to late 80s?

 

[150219]

Was there ever one with the BR double arrow, I have a feeling there was , say mid to late 80s?

Not a clipper that I am aware of, only the embossed examples (see Ayr and Glasgow in the Scottish Region page scanned). The Dormy ticket stampers that were originally tested at Exeter in 1984/5 had the BR logo as part of the stamp, but when they went into mainstream use they were simplified and didn't have the logo.

 

[Pinza-C55]

I remember when we were issued new grippers which resembled a large Dymo labeller though I can't remember the year. They must have cost a fortune but were rapidly abandoned.

 

[nlogax]

Quite liked this, was done on a n/b Avanti service I took back in November.

 

[Western 52]

Quite liked this, was done on a n/b Avanti service I took back in November.

View attachment 126600

Just wondering what the wheel arrangement for that loco is....

 

[D6130]

Just wondering what the wheel arrangement for that loco is....

....looks like an American-outline 4-2-0!

 

[PaulJ]

I've got a pair of unofficial ones for the kiddies tickets - one punches out a snowman (ideal for this time of year). The other is an elephant so I play 'guess the animal' with the nippers.

 

[AY1975]

Very much later on (mid 1990’s) Cross Country grippers had the head code stamped on your ticket, no use trying to complain about your train being late if you were on weren’t on that days 1V96!

Several of the long distance operators had those at least from about the mid 1990s until the early to mid 2000s. Before that, in the late 1980s and early 1990s BR had some light blue stampers that were similar to those. They were surely by far the most foolproof ones ever to have been used, as the train reporting number made it easier to spot tickets that were being misused (and fraudulent Delay Repay claims).

 

[Ken H]

Several of the long distance operators had those at least from about the mid 1990s until the early to mid 2000s. Before that, in the late 1980s and early 1990s BR had some light blue stampers that were similar to those. They were surely by far the most foolproof ones ever to have been used, as the train reporting number made it easier to spot tickets that were being misused (and fraudulent Delay Repay claims).

something like this?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

An interesting question for me is what was the purpose of all these varying shapes? If it was simply to cancel the ticket to prevent reuse then why the hassle?
Would anyone ever be clued up on all these clips/stamps to detect an irregularity?

I was once (early 1980s) frog-marched into the station inspector's office at Paddington, while trying to board an evening train back to Great Malvern.
The tickets at that time were the long ones with a printed destination and a machine-punched origin from the starting station, one ticket sufficing for the return trip.
I used to travel Great Malvern-Slough in the morning, (break of journey), Slough-Paddington over lunchtime (break of journey), returning from Paddington late afternoon.
All perfectly valid on the Great Malvern-Paddington return tickets of the day (would be Anytime today, I think).
But resuming the outward journey at Slough one day, the guy on the gate nipped the ticket with an edge triangle, and later at Paddington, starting the return journey, they decided I was a fraudulent traveller as the ticket had been "previously used".
It turns out the edge triangle indicated I hd already started the return journey, not resuming an outward one after a break of journey.
We parted more of less as friends, although I'm pretty sure they still thought I was being devious and was being "let off" lightly.
I have never knowingly defrauded a rail company over 60-odd years of travel, and have missed out on decades of non-existent BR delay-repay for disrupted journeys.

They were the days when a gang of burly ticket inspectors in full regalia would board every eastbound intercity train at Reading and work though the train before Paddington.
I think their descendants probably work the ramps at Euston today...

 

[Rescars]

....looks like an American-outline 4-2-0!

Or perhaps a Crampton?

 

[The exile]

I think back in Deltic days there was a sub class of bashers who tried to get as many "grips" as they could or tried to get unusual grips.

Not quite that far back, but I can remember having a Clifton Down - Holyhead return on an Edmonson that was more hole than ticket by the time it was finished with. Sure that after a while the grippers joined in and gripped when everyone else was just getting their ticket looked at!

 

[AY1975]

something like this?
View attachment 126935

Yes, those are the ones I remember seeing on BR in the late 1980s and early '90s. In those days a lot of train conductors on Network SouthEast and Regional Railways as well as Intercity trains had them. One wonders whatever happened to them all.

As mentioned above, several of the train operators used similar ones to those in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s, and even today you still see them occasionally, but it seems that a lot of conductors can no longer be bothered to maintain them properly and refill them with ink regularly, so they often resort to something simpler such as a whole puncher or even just make pen marks on tickets. If they're going to do that, then they should at least write the train reporting number on it as some of them do.

 

[LowLevel]

Yes, those are the ones I remember seeing on BR in the late 1980s and early '90s. In those days a lot of train conductors on Network SouthEast and Regional Railways as well as Intercity trains had them. One wonders whatever happened to them all.

As mentioned above, several of the train operators used similar ones to those in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s, and even today you still see them occasionally, but it seems that a lot of conductors can no longer be bothered to maintain them properly and refill them with ink regularly, so they often resort to something simpler such as a whole puncher or even just make pen marks on tickets. If they're going to do that, then they should at least write the train reporting number on it as some of them do.

The kit to maintain them is no longer supplied. TOCs that have been in the hands of Arriva for a bit (Chiltern, XC) were the last to issue them, presumably because they benefited from bulk purchase from Zifa via DB in Germany.

Most other TOCs no longer issued them by the mid 2000s but some staff who had them still did/do.

 

[Ashley Hill]

something like this?
View attachment 126935

Those Dormy stampers used to leak ink badly.