European ticket stock style

[ywy1234]

I am always wondering which organization regulates the european railways (e.g. ticket sale, routing, fare computation for international journeys and rail passes like interrail)?

Many European countries (inc. those out of EU countries like BiH) have the similar ticket stocks. Anyone knows the origin and/or (official/unofficial) documents on this? Also when I travelled on international trains between some eastern european countries (e.g. between Croatia and BiH), the staff stapled the tickets into booklets which also share the same pattern (sorry, cannot find a photo at the moment).

I cannot find much useful information using google or wikipedia
e.g. when using wikipedia search for interrail pass, I cannot find any information about who is behind this unified program.

Thanks!

 

[dutchflyer]

There is not a ''regulator'' as such-it is the combined state-railways that organise such things-and in the past this system was even far wider and more elaborate. UIC=Union Internationale de Chemins de Fer (=railways in French), comparable to how this worlds national postal systems work. And-as due to historic reasons the UK has always been ion the fringe of such things-the leading language has always been French.
The system to compute INTERnational fares was based on old times-thus before computers were even available. It was on an exchange base-inluding all the national railway timetable books. There was a folder/holder for every country participating, which had a general map and distance tables for BORDER points (NOT stations perse-you Brits have to learn a lot) till most important stops in KMs, and for transitroutes=border till border. Every country had a faretable-prices were simply based on distance, like also in very old BR-days) and a fare from A in country 11 to B in country 29-via whichever countries there were in between-you could thus also choose the route- was simply to calculate for every country the Kms-and thus the price-and add the total. These were in UIC-Francs-compare to like the EURO before there was a cash EUR, and exchange rates were set for a longer time. These fares would not necessarily be the same as the domestic fares.
Due to how this system was set up-and in principle still works today- it was an enormous effort to get it computerised. Old-IATA airticketing hands will understand that it also was used as a base for IATA fares-in times before computers and when every country had agreements with other countries about how their airlines would cooperate.
THis is just the very abstract basics-there are enormous addenda for short-traffic, special routes, special trains, etc-a whole book could be filed with it and has- my old neighbor had it @ home when she did the study to become international ticketing staff in the early 70ies from NS=Dutch Railways.
You are right that this subject is very sparse in wiki or on the web as such. I too have always wondered why that is.

 

[30907]

Not much to add except that the ticket layout was a UIC product and (for example) a DB international ticket (even a print-at-home one) is still issued in that format (though the ones I've had were on thin card and with no "cover").

InterRail was first issued (as a one-off) to mark the 50th anniversary of the UIC in 1972 and had the UIC logo on it.
Sadly, I didn't keep mine as the rebate for handing it back was too attractive, but a quick Google Images search produced this Norwegian proof copy:
http://www.raileurope.co.uk/Home/Corporate/RELBlog/tabid/2290/EntryId/224/Four-Decades-of-InterRail.aspx