What was the contemporary view of the Grouping?

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Just because these deeply buried seams of Carboniferous era coal are there of course does not mean that they are of marketable quality or capable of economic extraction

The Warwickshire coal is the same as that mined at Daw Mill and I think Kersley (Coventry Colliery), both of which supplied Didcot. 

Around the time that the South Warwickshire Prospect was being developed BR was involved in another possible mine which was on the route of the abandoned GNR line near Stafford. There was a nice thick seam but deep down and it was too corrosive for use in boilers. I don't think it ever got past a few test borings that demonstrated the extent of the seam. It may have been of use to the chemical industry but nobody wanted it at the time when other cheaper sources were readily available.

Cannock Chase coalfield was closer to the surface and geological action meant that some areas were suitable for opencasting power station coal. When were were laying the cables from Bloxwich for the interlocking to control the access to the Distribution Point at the site of the old Essington Wood sidings the machine being used to bury them was actually cutting coal just below cess level as it went along.

[The Johnster]

You can see coal seams in the rock cutttings on the M4 between the Miskin and Pencoed junctions. and there are craters on the slopes of Caerphilly Mountain where the seams come to the surface and were illegally cropped by local people during the Great Depression.  There are others nearby that are the result of Luftwaffe bombing of the mountain, which had been lit with mock lighting to divert an attack on Cardiff, but that's OT...

[Mike Storey]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Indian railways were by far the largest employers but many of them were not joint stock companies (on which the LMS based its claim).  They remained massive employers (and probably still are) well after nationalisation in India=.  Back in the 1970s we had an Indian Railways Divisional Manger spend a couple of days with our AMs team in the West Country and his labour force was counted in tens of thousands.  I doubt if (m)any BR traffic Divisions got into 5 figures for the size of their labour force by then. 

 

Yes. We had him on the SE too. One comment he made, within my hearing, was as to how we "got away with" reducing so many jobs by automation and similar!

 

But, as we seem to have reverted to a history of coalmining and other railways, has this thread run its course, or is there more to say about the Grouping?

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Mike Storey

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 02/05/2022 at 18:07, Mike Storey said:

has this thread run its course, or is there more to say about the Grouping?

I think Grouping was just part of the regular flow we see through the years in many businesses. Companies merge to form bigger companies partly to corner someone else's market share. They get greedy, diversify and become an unmanageable conglomerate. From there the paths are usually demerge or fail. Circumstances such as wars or the business being essential to the national wellbeing may also intervene leading to the Government to take control. A political shift then demands denationalisation ( later renamed privatisation) which leads to selling off the assets cheaply to their mates on some spurious promise or other of a quick buck for the national purse. A few larger groups gather in all of the services so you have a handful of big companies running things but they got their sums wrong and it all unravels and the Government has to step in again.

Grouping was just a step along the way in a process which had started with mergers like those forming the Midland Railway in 1844 and LNWR in 1846. All just another spin of the Magic Roundabout.

Edited May 4, 2022 by TheSignalEngineer

[Mikkel]

I'm currently working my way through the digital archives of the Railway Magazine. The January 1923 issue has the following report:

 

"Mr. Felix J. C. Pole on Grouping

In proposing the toast of " The County Borough, Port and Trade of Swansea," at the annual banquet of the Swansea Chamber of Commerce on Friday, November 24, Mr. Felix J. C. Pole, General Manager, Great Western Railway, pointed out that […] (w)hatever view might be held as to the policy of grouping, it was certain that the situation in which the railways found themselves after seven years of Government control called for drastic treatment.

 

In 1913, the last complete year before Government control, the total expenditure was 75 millions. By the year 1918 it had risen to 131 millions, and in 1920, the last complete year of control, to 228 millions. Moreover, at that time, costs were still rising. By far the largest part of that enormous increase of expenditure was due to wages concessions, and the introduction of the eight-hour day. The Government were forced to make railway receipts balance the expenditure, and his hearers were aware of the extent to which railway rates had been advanced at one bound in January, 1920. In his opinion, the Government lost a great opportunity of raising money when they failed to advance railway rates concurrently with the growth of expenditure during the years 1916-20. They might have secured many millions to the relief of taxation, and, incidentally, have demonstrated that the bargain with the railways was an exceedingly good one for the State.

 

Mr. Pole, continuing his address, remarked that after the war, rates were advanced, but the growth of expenditure had been so great that the Government recognised that something drastic had to be done. The policy of grouping was therefore adopted "to enable economies to be effected." Only on the basis of their working efficiently and economically were the companies to be secured a modest return on the capital invested in them, the basis being the net receipts for the year 1913. As regards labour, machinery had been provided for enabling the men and the officers and directors to meet together to discuss matters in which they were mutually interested; and incidentally, he hoped that they had seen the last of strikes in the railway world.  Finally, the trader, who had to " pay the piper," had been given a new tribunal, to which he could appeal in regard to railway rates, and which had to fix standard charges.

 

Today, despite reductions of both items, railway expenditure and railway rates were still too high. The Great Western and other railways believed in the principle of a good day's pay for a good day's work; but they also realised that no industry could prosper without paying at least a modest dividend to the proprietors, while the price of any commodity was limited to its commercial value. Under the Railways Act, railway companies were limited in the profit they could make, and it followed that any excess could only be divided between the traders and the employees.

 

Each of those parties was therefore interested in the welfare of the railways; the traders because the more traffic they put on the railways, the lower would be the rates and charges, and the staff, because, only by more efficient and economical working would the railways be able to pay higher wages than they did before the war. In short, there was a mutuality of interest between the companies, the traders and the men such as had never existed before, and he was most sanguine that this mutuality of interest, coupled with the formation of the Great Western Group and all that that entailed, would be of the utmost benefit to the trade and commerce of the town and port of Swansea […]"

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Under the Railways Act, railway companies were limited in the profit they could make, and it followed that any excess could only be divided between the traders and the employees.

 

By Gladstone's 1844 Act, nationalisation in the public interest was an option if dividends exceeded 10% of invested capital, which of course they never did. In 1844, the example of the canals was fresh in mind; some of the canal companies had paid out their entire capitalisation in dividends over three to four years, being able to set their tolls at the absolute maximum the market would bear.

 

I'm not aware of subsequent legislation changing this 10% but am happy to be better informed.

 

It's notable that Pole says nothing about road competition, given that the Great Western was in prime territory for losing short-distance first class passengers to the motor car. But I suppose that given his audience, he felt secure of the principal local traffic - coal. He's still able to take it for granted that he presides over a monopoly, so the only restraint on his company's activities is government legislation and policy.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Compound2632

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

By Gladstone's 1844 Act, nationalisation in the public interest was an option if dividends exceeded 10% of invested capital, which of course they never did. In 1844, the example of the canals was fresh in mind; some of the canal companies had paid out their entire capitalisation in dividends over three to four years, being able to set their tolls at the absolute maximum the market would bear.

 

I'm not aware of subsequent legislation changing this 10% but am happy to be better informed.

 

It's notable that Pole says nothing about road competition, given that the Great Western was in prime territory for losing short-distance first class passengers to the motor car. But I suppose that given his audience, he felt secure of the principal local traffic - coal. He's still able to take it for granted that he presides over a monopoly, so the only restraint on his company's activities is government legislation and policy.

Hardly a GWR monopoly in Swansea as both the LNWR and MR had strong presences in the area.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Hardly a GWR monopoly in Swansea as both the LNWR and MR had strong presences in the area.

 

Yes, indeed (you would, I'm sure, expect me to be aware of that), but a railway industry monopoly on transport.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Compound2632

[Mike Storey]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It's notable that Pole says nothing about road competition, given that the Great Western was in prime territory for losing short-distance first class passengers to the motor car. 

 

Agree with all of that except to say that the GWR were foremost amongst GB railways to own, or partially own, bus operators, and continued to have shares in many of them until the 1930's, and in one or two cases, up to nationalisation.

 

But his comments concerning expenditure, as opposed to income, were somewhat suspect. Labour costs never exceeded one third of all expenditure, and the vast increase during and after WW1 was mostly due to replacing worn out, damaged or life expired vehicles, traction and infrastructure. He makes no reference to modernising GWR operation, except in terms of labour costs reduction. His presumption that the new "tribunal" would prevent further labour disputes says it all.

 

[The Stationmaster]

Mind you it is worthwhile noting that the Railway Staff National Tribunal (RSNT) did achieve quite a lot in respect of agreements between staff and management over its lifetime and a lot of its stuff dated from the period between the wars.

 

Interestingly of course within a decade of the Grouping the GW was engaged in some pretty serious rationalisation of previously competing routes where capacity allowed.  But road competition for both passengers and general goods traffic  also seriously increased although the GWr mofdernised some of its activity with increasing use of road transport in order to compete.  Although I do wonder to what extent its road motor coach service between Cheltenham and Oxford was successful before it was taken away from the company (it later became a South Midland coach route)

[JeremyC]

On 03/05/2022 at 06:26, Mikkel said:

In 1913, the last complete year before Government control, the total expenditure was 75 millions. By the year 1918 it had risen to 131 millions, and in 1920, the last complete year of control, to 228 millions. Moreover, at that time, costs were still rising. By far the largest part of that enormous increase of expenditure was due to wages concessions, and the introduction of the eight-hour day. ....

 

This was, apparently, one of the reasons the idea of a Scottish group was abandoned, because the finances of the Scottish companies had been put on a cliff edge by the increases in costs.

[Mike Storey]

On 04/05/2022 at 17:42, The Stationmaster said:

Mind you it is worthwhile noting that the Railway Staff National Tribunal (RSNT) did achieve quite a lot in respect of agreements between staff and management over its lifetime and a lot of its stuff dated from the period between the wars.

 

Interestingly of course within a decade of the Grouping the GW was engaged in some pretty serious rationalisation of previously competing routes where capacity allowed.  But road competition for both passengers and general goods traffic  also seriously increased although the GWr mofdernised some of its activity with increasing use of road transport in order to compete.  Although I do wonder to what extent its road motor coach service between Cheltenham and Oxford was successful before it was taken away from the company (it later became a South Midland coach route)

 

For the former, the RSNT was not actually created until 1935, under the Machinery of Negotiation for Railway Staff (part 6), agreed between all railway companies and the NUR, ASLE&F and the RCA. It was still being used in the 1990's. I am not sure what happened to it after Privatisation. The 1907 Conciliation Act was meant to sort all this out, but clearly had not worked sufficiently well.

 

For the latter, rationalisation was very much the name of the game (they shut the passenger service on the Corris, for example, replacing it with a bus service, in which they had a major shareholding), but many of their bus operations were feeders, rather than competitive routes, particularly in Cornwall and Devon. The 1929 Act stopped all that, however, and just left them as major shareholders in many.

 

[The Stationmaster]

20 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

For the former, the RSNT was not actually created until 1935, under the Machinery of Negotiation for Railway Staff (part 6), agreed between all railway companies and the NUR, ASLE&F and the RCA. It was still being used in the 1990's. I am not sure what happened to it after Privatisation. The 1907 Conciliation Act was meant to sort all this out, but clearly had not worked sufficiently well.

 

For the latter, rationalisation was very much the name of the game (they shut the passenger service on the Corris, for example, replacing it with a bus service, in which they had a major shareholding), but many of their bus operations were feeders, rather than competitive routes, particularly in Cornwall and Devon. The 1929 Act stopped all that, however, and just left them as major shareholders in many.

 

Yes the effect of the 1929 Act was not liked by various GWR employees who suddenly found themselves working for 'bus companies - although they retained their GWR staff travel facilities.  A chap I knew slightly in Plymouth in the late 1970s had been what he always regarded as a 'victim' of that change and still considered himself to really be a GWR man almost 50 years later.

[Tankerman]

17 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Yes the effect of the 1929 Act was not liked by various GWR employees who suddenly found themselves working for 'bus companies - although they retained their GWR staff travel facilities.  A chap I knew slightly in Plymouth in the late 1970s had been what he always regarded as a 'victim' of that change and still considered himself to really be a GWR man almost 50 years later.

 

Not sure if I've posted this before. In the 1950's one of the older ticket collectors at Truro station had replaced at least one of the BR buttons on his coat with a GWR one. He always referred to the GWR as 'The Company' and considered the standards required by BR to be very much inferior to those of the GWR.

[The Stationmaster]

17 minutes ago, Tankerman said:

 

Not sure if I've posted this before. In the 1950's one of the older ticket collectors at Truro station had replaced at least one of the BR buttons on his coat with a GWR one. He always referred to the GWR as 'The Company' and considered the standards required by BR to be very much inferior to those of the GWR.

The Area Manager at Slough when i was working there in late 1966 always wore his GWR 'pillbox' SM's hat when out & about on the platform etc and was very much an 'old company' man (and was good at his job).  He was however 'eased out' the following year and took early retirement.  His successor wasn't - as many had expected - a youngster but also had considerable service and as it happened was 'well connected' with a close relative in a very senior position on the Region.  However he only lasted a couple of years or so before 'retiring early' as one of the casualties of the 'great Slough booking office fiddles' situation although he had no involvement in it but the shambles occurred during his tenure and he was signing off stuff and not carrying out checks which would have revealed far earlier what was going on there.

 

I did  a week of evening cover overtime there and was horrified by what I found so refused to go there any more and gave the auditors a copy of my report to the Chief Clerk regarding what I had found simply as a result of doing what I was supposed to do.   It was one of the simplest fiddles of all but one which would inevitably have come to light very quickly if things were done properly.  The auditors went in the following week because they already had suspicions that things were not right there.  Alas the real culprits were never caught (they'd worked there for a few months or so and then left) but there was a major round of people 'retiring early' or being moved elsewhere once the auditors had done their job.

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Area Manager at Slough when i was working there in late 1966 always wore his GWR 'pillbox' SM's hat when out & about on the platform etc and was very much an 'old company' man (and was good at his job).  He was however 'eased out' the following year and took early retirement.  His successor wasn't - as many had expected - a youngster but also had considerable service and as it happened was 'well connected' with a close relative in a very senior position on the Region.  However he only lasted a couple of years or so before 'retiring early' as one of the casualties of the 'great Slough booking office fiddles' situation although he had no involvement in it but the shambles occurred during his tenure and he was signing off stuff and not carrying out checks which would have revealed far earlier what was going on there.

 

I did  a week of evening cover overtime there and was horrified by what I found so refused to go there any more and gave the auditors a copy of my report to the Chief Clerk regarding what I had found simply as a result of doing what I was supposed to do.   It was one of the simplest fiddles of all but one which would inevitably have come to light very quickly if things were done properly.  The auditors went in the following week because they already had suspicions that things were not right there.  Alas the real culprits were never caught (they'd worked there for a few months or so and then left) but there was a major round of people 'retiring early' or being moved elsewhere once the auditors had done their job.

It is sad when the wrong people become victims.

 

Accusations need to be directed at those concerned AFTER investigations, not a blanket 'you were working there, during the period'.

[chris p bacon]

4 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

It is sad when the wrong people become victims.

Going off topic here, but many years ago in a previous life I caught a junior (CO1) clerk fiddling. After collecting evidence and presenting it to the AM he was instantly dismissed.

Unfortunately for me he was the favourite of the Assistant AM who took me to one side and said "You've made a fool of me so I'll make sure your promotion legs are cut"  

With such good management like that I knew it was time to leave.

[Jeff Smith]

Nowadays, certainly in the US, that conversation could be reported on a confidential hotline.

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

It is sad when the wrong people become victims.

 

Accusations need to be directed at those concerned AFTER investigations, not a blanket 'you were working there, during the period'.

 

Well, not quite. Early retirement was often a gentle way of letting people go without them having to face disciplinary proceedings, which could have hurt them far more, when their "crime" was inaction. We had a similar situation at Paddock Wood ticket office in the early 80's, and the fraud was on a major scale. So much so that, just before the Internal boys turned up to raid the place, the chief clerk burnt it down and did a runner. The SM of the time was quietly let go on a full pension - he was an ex-signalman and knew little about internal controls, which is what they relied on. As with Mike's example, more diligent routine checks would have revealed the scam much earlier, so the SM could have faced an absolute trouncing. A Relief SM uncovered it all, when the usual SM was on leave.

 

I believe decisions like that were less fortunate for the person-in-charge at the time of The Grouping.

 

[The Stationmaster]

22 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Well, not quite. Early retirement was often a gentle way of letting people go without them having to face disciplinary proceedings, which could have hurt them far more, when their "crime" was inaction. We had a similar situation at Paddock Wood ticket office in the early 80's, and the fraud was on a major scale. So much so that, just before the Internal boys turned up to raid the place, the chief clerk burnt it down and did a runner. The SM of the time was quietly let go on a full pension - he was an ex-signalman and knew little about internal controls, which is what they relied on. As with Mike's example, more diligent routine checks would have revealed the scam much earlier, so the SM could have faced an absolute trouncing. A Relief SM uncovered it all, when the usual SM was on leave.

 

I believe decisions like that were less fortunate for the person-in-charge at the time of The Grouping.

 

Very much the case. If the GWR's minuted attention to the matter is any indication of wider reaction following the Quintinshill multiple collision there was a considerable rethink, and presumably a tightening, in respect of the matters required to be 'signed-off' by a Stationmaster in his monthly/four weekly return.  This sort of requirement still existed years later - for example the WR issued a revised and updated version in 1974 following the major Area level reorganisation which happened in the early part of that year.

 

In station accountancy - as in various other matters in an SM's etc responsibilities - there were requirement to sign-off accounts etc as correct which meant there was a traceable responsibility if matters were subsequently found not to be correct.  There were simple procedures in place, at laid down frequencies (which gradually became longer over the years), to deal with the two most obvious and simplest areas of booking office defalcation (aka fiddles) and they had to be applied at the point where the defalcation took place because that was where the evidence existed hence there was a local (SM's ) responsibility although some of that could be delegated - but that delegation still had to be supervised.

 

There was a third, seemingly simple, method of defalcation and that was falsifying the records of issue of blank card tickets.  The only way of tracing it was from the evidence on the ticket itself compared with the record of that ticket's issue and the only place that could readily done was at the ticket section of the Audit office to which all collected tickets had to be sent - and no doubt that could not be a 100% check due to the sheer volume of work.  So in this case the SM could not be held responsible but equally he could, in various ways, possibly find the necessary evidence if he was very lucky - and if that happened it usually merited a pat on the back.

 

But back to Mike Storey's point, and probably something which might have changed fo some former Companies at the grouping(?), a Stationmaster or Goods Agent could be held responsible for all sorts of financial things even if he was not personally involved.  And in older times the most likely result - unless he was lucky - would be demotion along with transfer to a backwater or to somewhere nobody else had wished to go.

[Mike Storey]

10 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

In station accountancy - as in various other matters in an SM's etc responsibilities - there were requirement to sign-off accounts etc as correct which meant there was a traceable responsibility if matters were subsequently found not to be correct.  There were simple procedures in place, at laid down frequencies (which gradually became longer over the years), to deal with the two most obvious and simplest areas of booking office defalcation (aka fiddles) and they had to be applied at the point where the defalcation took place because that was where the evidence existed hence there was a local (SM's ) responsibility although some of that could be delegated - but that delegation still had to be supervised.

 

There was a third, seemingly simple, method of defalcation and that was falsifying the records of issue of blank card tickets.  The only way of tracing it was from the evidence on the ticket itself compared with the record of that ticket's issue and the only place that could readily done was at the ticket section of the Audit office to which all collected tickets had to be sent - and no doubt that could not be a 100% check due to the sheer volume of work.  So in this case the SM could not be held responsible but equally he could, in various ways, possibly find the necessary evidence if he was very lucky - and if that happened it usually merited a pat on the back.

 

But back to Mike Storey's point, and probably something which might have changed fo some former Companies at the grouping(?), a Stationmaster or Goods Agent could be held responsible for all sorts of financial things even if he was not personally involved.  And in older times the most likely result - unless he was lucky - would be demotion along with transfer to a backwater or to somewhere nobody else had wished to go.

 

As you say, very hard to catch fiddles on blank tickets. That is why so many, even minor, ticket offices had printed card tickets for so many destinations, even where they only sold one or two a year. Some of the stock went back decades. But the buggeration factor then was to ensure an accurate "take off", where the last number of each set of tickets had to be recorded and sent off for checking, each 4 week period. The easiest fiddle of all therefore, was to take a ticket within the batch, not the last one, sell that, and pocket the money. The introduction of APTIS (a computerised system, which printed all and any ticket you could, almost, possibly want, and record all the data) stopped all that in the 1980's, although other fiddles were tried, even so.

 

Quite how the individual companies, before and after Grouping, chose to deal with that, on the mechanical Edmonson ticket system which most of them used by then, is only covered haphazardly in the records. The history seems to suggest that the Railway Police were involved far more than they would be these days, there being few Internal Control offices then. Certainly, some clerks were almost hung, drawn and quartered, when a fiddle was found, but I would guess, many never were found out. There were quite a few, very well dressed and generous ticket clerks around in those days..... I seem to recall the case of York NER/GNR ticket office as one particular example, in the 1900's. I stand to be corrected, as ever, but I believe there was a mass clear out of the staff at some stage, but the fiddles had been going on for years. Most suspicions relied on a distinct change in ticket office income year-on-year, but when it went on for so long, that did not work.

 

As for demotion/transfers, Buggleskelly??

 

[The Stationmaster]

(Long after the Grouping so slightly off topic). People sometimes asked me why I took a particular in what one member of my staff was doing when I took over an Area (as Area Manager) in 1978?   They didn't, with one exception,  seem to think it unusual that I wondered how on earth a Leading Railman - who collected excess fares among his other duties - was driving around in a BMW less than a year old.  

 

As it happened my Terminals Asst - someone a lot brighter than many gave him credit for - was something of a wily old fox and had taken a long and pretty deep, but far from overt, interest in said Leading Railman's activities and apart from finding no hint of any wrongdoing had established that the man's apparent wealth came from family money, not BR's.    

 

But always beware of anyone who gets involved in betting - very few of them (in my experience) can manage to make much out of a good understanding of racing form.

[chris p bacon]

The 2 fiddles I uncovered were used by the same clerk.  At the station concerned it had (has) a large Army camp a couple of miles away and when there was a mass exodus for leave the Booking office would have to keep back a lot of small denomination notes (£1) for change. The warrants the squaddies were issued with were always by the cheapest route and lots would pay the extra to go 'via London'. Every time there was a large exodus from the camp the next cash up would show a £5/£10/£15/£20 loss. The Chief clerk presumed that this was due to someone being overchanged but I thought there was something else going on as it was always a loss divisible by 5 and it didn't bear any relation to the number of excess fares issued.

At the next camp leave weekend I was rostered for the Friday afternoon/evening shift and before starting decided to do a balance check so ran another page against the TIB and counted the tills and safe, part way through putting cash in the tills I opened a £100 bundle of £1 notes and counted out a band of them, there was only £19...... I counted out the other bundles and each £20 paper clip only had £19.  In total the 4 bundles of £1 notes which should have had £400 only had £380.  At some time during the previous week a £1note had been removed from each bundle which wouldn't have been spotted by the Chief clerk at cash up as he would just count the bundle without checking. I alerted the Traffic manager as I could not presume the chief clerk was part of the fiddle and investigations were ongoing when I uncovered the second fiddle. 

This involved Red Star parcels which were sent regularly by several companies in the locality to Kings Cross. Over a short period of time the number of parcels declined but I was convinced that a pad of consignment notes had gone missing so decided to visit the local companies and ask how they were getting on with the service. All of them were happy and I asked if I could have some photocopies of the consignment notes as we had "Had a flood" and couldn't read some of them, they all obliged and it became obvious that they were all received and processed by the same person, the CO1 clerk.

 Red Star had a glaring hole in its security, the consignment pads were unnumbered! 3 copies of the note were made when the parcel was sent, 1 to the sender and 2 for the Booking office. The CO1 was checking with KX that the parcel had been picked up with no damage reported and then promptly destroying the 2 office copies as they were the only evidence that anything had been sent for accounting purposes. Every time he did this he pocketed the £3.70 sending fee, a fair amount of money considering he was on £50 a week. I found 50+ parcel invoices from various companies that had not been accounted for. He had started slowly so that the declining number of sent parcels wasn't noted quickly so he was definitely looking at the 'long game'  When sacked he was asked whether I was correct and he admitted the Red Star fiddle.

A number of weeks later he passed through the station on the way to a night out in Cambridge and laughed at the Chief Clerk in the BO and admitted he'd had the £1 notes from the bundles, the CC wasn't amused and asked the railman to speak to the guard and driver on the DMU, the former clerk was later ejected from the train at Foxton which at the time was on a 2 hourly service......shame...😅

 

In the short time I was in Booking Offices I uncovered a number of fiddles but the best ones were passengers using stolen credit cards which paid £50 if caught and taken out of circulation. I had nearly 20 of them.

[Chris116]

During my time in ticket offices I worked with one clerk who had a happy habit of handing over £20 bags of £1 coins with only £19 in them. Thankfully, I had been warned that I should check his stuff carefully and the first day we met he had five bags thrown over his head into his cash draw as I told him to learn to count! He acted all innocent and never tried it on again with me although one or two clerks who were covering duties and had not been warned had losses of £5 to £15 after he had passed cash to them. 

[Michael Hodgson]

On 07/05/2022 at 15:40, kevinlms said:

It is sad when the wrong people become victims.

 

That's when I get so angry about the recent scandal involving so many Sub-Postmasters who got the blame when defective software implied they were on the fiddle.

 

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But always beware of anyone who gets involved in betting - very few of them (in my experience) can manage to make much out of a good understanding of racing form.

 

Bit difficult that when the most profitable part of your business is forex dealing  or worse still, trading on futures and options markets!  You need extremely strong controls over what those dealers are up to.  Horse racing is not in the same league.  Nearly 50 years ago I was working for Lloyds Bank when we got panic messages from Head Office to the effect that we must reassure customers that the we were still solvent as they were worried about the possibility of a run on the bank.  The news had just broken that just one rogue dealer in a tin-pot branch in Lugano had racked up losses which wiped out about half the Bank's share value.  It was probably the biggest banking crisis since Overend Gurney which had been too exposed to the railway industry in the 1860s.

 

The vice to beware of is those who are too fond of the ladies.  The internal audit department I worked in was somewhat embarrassed after one of my colleagues transferred to a line position in the Paris office.  He couldn't afford to support his wife and both his girlfriends to the standard to which they were accustomed.  Well, he was French.  One day he phoned his boss from Marseille and reminded him of a bog standard audit recommendation  "You may recall that when I was in audit I tp;d you that the person who reconciles an account should not have the power to sign on that account ... "  It was about $100k .  They didn't prosecute as it would be bad publicity, they managed to recover a few thousand from him, last I heard he was driving a cab in Paris.