Joad once boasted in print, "I cheat the railway company whenever I can."[15] On 12 April 1948 Joad was caught travelling on a Waterloo to Exeter train without a valid ticket.[16] When he failed to give a satisfactory explanation, he was convicted of fare dodging and fined £2 (£66 as of 2016). This made front-page headlines in the national newspapers, destroyed his hopes of a peerage and resulted in his dismissal from the BBC.[17] The humiliation of this had a severe effect on Joad's health, and he soon became bed-confined at his home in Hampstead.[citation needed] Joad renounced his agnosticism and returned to the Christianity of the Church of England, which he detailed in his book The Recovery of Belief, published in 1952.[18]
This was a well known media man of the day - "The Brains Trust" - fare avoidance has probably been around since Victorian days and the first passenger train ran in service. I can thin of several well known and funded individuals who have been caught - one even gluing in ticket punch clippings to a BR style Inter City ticket of the 1970's - to no avail , he was caught and heavily fined. A mere Professor. I would add.
One takes it that Mr. Joad contritely and repentantly confessed his fare-dodging, to the Almighty and was duly pardoned.
Agreeing that people have been doing it ever since there have been railways and (as per
ChiefPlanner's post) sometimes, respectable citizens as well as obvious low-lifes. I read about a case, approximately 100 years ago, in which a chap got away for years with an ingenious scam, needing a fair amount of work on his part to carry out. He travelled several times a month between London and the north of England: the pre-Grouping railway company whose services he used, had a special season-ticket-type deal for people with such travel needs. Year after year, the bod ingeniously forged a copy of the ticket concerned: and travelled using said forgery, until finally an alert inspector spotted something wrong, and our anti-hero duly ended up in court. The best part: the chap was zealously active in his church, and a lay preacher his trips up north, were in order to do his preaching. I suppose one concludes either: religion is rubbish, and heres proof of it; or, theres no limit to the weirdness which people can come up with.
I am, on principle, meticulous about finding a way to pay my fare when I use public transport; but there was an occasion when, basically, I fare-dodged in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This was in India in 1993 a tour to take in some of the remaining steam: mostly done by car (my companion for the trip, driving), but with the odd steam passenger train ride. Companion and I, had separated for a day I spent it doing some steam rail travel on the local metre-gauge system. Reached a junction station, from which there ran a branch line with one passenger working steam-hauled each way per day. My plan was to travel to the first station out on the branch a 15 / 20 minute run and then walk back to the junction (logistics / timings didnt allow out-and-back-all-the-way by branch train). The booking office at the junction was closed, all the time that I was there. OK, I thought, Ill approach the guard on the train. It turned out that the train was composed of a rake of three rather weird coaches, a bit reminiscent in layout of the 15in. gauge in Britain no way for passengers, or the guard, to get from coach to coach while the train was in motion. Stop at the first station, where I alighted, was very brief: no chance to approach the guard. And the station concerned, was unstaffed no-one to whom to explain my problem and offer money. Back at the junction either (I forget the details) the booking office was still closed; or, it was open but my train back to base was expected shortly, and I couldnt face explaining with time-constraints -- a complicated situation, to functionaries who though they were usually nice enough would probably have poorish English-language skills.
Back home, I did have thoughts of contacting the Indian railways representatives in Britain, telling the tale, and offering to pay whatever my fare was for the journey concerned; but ended up with the sentiment this is too ridiculously petty, and those whom I contacted would probably not thank me for making a fuss about something so trivial. If the Western Railway of India are so totally unable to get their fare-acquiring act together, thats their look-out.
