Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi, I used to keep all my old tickets in a wallet and in 2001 they were doing ticket checks at Taunton and so I got out my ticket for the journey as the inspector saw that I had other tickets and said "what are all the tickets there" I said they were old tickets and he then said that you have to dispose of them when you finish your journey and he then took them off me.  Is there any rule about keeping old tickets?

Yeah in condition 1 of the national rail conditions of carriage it does state that tickets remain the property of the TOC that sold it to you.

Their concern is about fraudulent use of old tickets, and touts selling used day travel cards (especially in London).  The ticket even after is been used is technically the property of the Train Operating Company

Here comes some unwanted (and amasingly *FREE*  ;) advice from a lawyer...

IIRC, under the current Conditions of Carriage (the 24 July 2006 version) the used ticket is the property of the relevant TOC  and can be retained by them (although if you ask nicely they will give you it back, usually after cancelling it or tearing the magnetic strip to prevent reuse). 

(quite which TOC is the relevent TOC is rather unclear from the conditions which have been badly drafted- is it the TOC that issues the ticket, the TOCs that prices the ticket or the TOC on whoes train the ticket is used? - as a matter of law it can't be all of them and it will remain uncertain until the Conditions are amended or a court decides what they mean - Ollie's guess that it is the TOC that sells the ticket is reasonable but might not be right and in any case would not give a FGW employee the right to retain a ticket sold by another TOC or a travel agent or Thetrainline.com)

The NCCs were amended, rather cac-handedly in my view, to introduce this provsion to 1) reduce the amount of ticket re-use and 2) to prevent the TOC's being left open to accusations of theft where a ticket barrier automatically retained a ticket and the station staff quite reasonably refused to retreive the swallowed ticket from the machine)

However IIRC (and please correct me if anyone knows otherwise), the Conditions in force in 2001 did not contain that provsion so the chap at Tauton may have acted illegally (and rather foolishly leaves himself open to a criminal charge of theft if you reported it to the police)

I keep all of my old tickets (just out of interest and I remind myself of how much cheaper they used to be as well as for expenses claims with my employer).  Old tickets are also sold on ebay to collectors. 

If I was their lawyer, I would advise barrier staff to be careful about confiscating tickets and to only confiscate (or better still cancel) those for which reuse is a real posibility and certainly not confiscate any tickets of purely historical interest and certainly not any tickets issued pre July 2006.   If is hard to believe (although not completely certain) that a court would find against an employee or TOC who was able to argue that their actions where nothering more than those neccessary to prevent fraudulent travel but barrier staff are on possibly shaky legal ground if they think that Condition 1 clearly gives them the right to retain each and every ticket (if that is what your employer has told you then you may have been misled, it might give you the right to retain some tickets but the issue is far from clear). 
I don't see a problem with a barrier staff member collecting up tickets but if a passenger asks for a ticket back then there would appear to be little point in arguing with them because of both the hassle and the fact that the barrier staff member might actually be the wrong side of the law.  It is always safer to tear it in half and hand it back.

I put TOC who sold it as to me that is how it comes across.

"Tickets remain the property of the relevant Train Company."

So if it 'remains' the property then that should be whoever sold it, as they own the original stock.

That's how I see it anyway.

I follow your logic and you are probably right.  but not all tickets collected at, Tauton will be the property of FGW so barrier staff their probably don't have a blanket right to retain all tickets. 

It would have been much better if the ownership of the bit of card had remained with the passenger (afterall this would be no loss to the railway - the card itself has not value to the railway) but the Conditions required the passenger to "give up the ticket to a "railway servant" or "surrender it when journey has been completed", in the same way that that railway employees have the right to inspect your ticket.

He did not take them off me by force he just "suggested" that he take them.  I did not want to fight him over it.

I've had similar suggestions made to me at Oxford and it probably is good advice not to carry loads of old tickets arround with you for no reason.  My old tickets from 2001 onwards are in piles on the mantlepiece in my office - about 5 feet long in total (admitedly seat reservations and credit card recipts and Tube carnets  are also included in the piles) and they would't all fit in my wallet!  I hate to think how much the fares add up to, I wouldn't be surprised if it was ^100,000 or more (although I reckon I've had at least ^5,000 back as compensation over the years which is probably about equal to the fares I haven't been able to claim on expenses)

I have had some interesting times at Taunton station,  I had issues twice in the ticket office when they did not want to sell me a combination of cheap day returns so I could do the journey cheaper.  I also had a dispatcher watch me run up the stairs and then shut the last door on the HST when I got to the top and dispatch the train.  I got shouted at another time for taking too long to get on the train and as I said I had the tickets taken off me that time.  I have not had any issues like this at any other station.

Another reason why barriers/staff should keep tickets it to reduce litter, and enable recycling.

However, I think you should be allowed to keep it, providing the strip is punched.

If you want proof of purchase, get a receipt when you buy.

BUT

The receipt doesnt have on it the destination stations and source

Which then causes a problem with the tax man if you are self employed and work in an industry where they assume you are dodgy

Yes madam, but that ^190 ticket, can you prove it was to your client in reading and not bought for a jolly.

Back in the days of BR I was on a train on the Southminster line in Essex and just before Burnham-on-crouch a member of staff walked through the train taking tickets off everyone.  This may just have been a Network SouthEast policy at the time though.

i have a pile of all my old tickets (about 300) dating back 12 years :0) including some of the ones you used to be able to get for intercity when you booked your holiday at a travel agents!!

should i send them back to the toc's?

Any ticket issued under ATOC may be retained by any "authorised person" (basicly anyone employed by or acting on behalf of (i.e.contractor)a TOC) that is employed by any TOC that is a member of ATOC, another interesting point, if you look at any inspectors warrant badge it has the "National Rail" logo under the TOC's logo as they can infact act for any TOC, i.e. an FGW inspector can caution and interview a fare evador on an XC service if requested.

i guess it has to work that way if each opperating company provided staff to check tickets at each station it would be a nightmare