One Day Tickets

[superteacher]

Before the introduction of one day travelcards in 1983, what tickets were available for unlimited daily use? I remember the Red Bus Rover, but was there an equivalent for underground use? Was there a combined ticket for bus and underground use? And what were the times when such tickets could be used?

[Dstock7080]

- Red Rover (red buses)
- Green Rover (country buses)
- Golden Rover (country buses + Green Line Coaches)
- Weekend Rover (Tube validity)
- Central London Tube Rover (Tube validity)

can’t remember the restrictions though!

[Colin D]

There was also a Twin Rover that could be used on the UndergrounD and buses. My friend and I used them quite a bit when we were kids, he was into bus spotting. Very handy for covering pretty much the whole system. I don’t think there were any restrictions on weekends, not sure about weekdays.

[stapler]

I think the Rovers were available on weekends/BH only when first introduced. A child red rover was half a crown c1962.

[castlebar]

Red Rovers were 5/- for adults (as were Green Rovers) when first issued. Half price for children @ 2/6d

Twin Rovers were 8/6d for adults

I think "Golden Rovers" were 10/6d

[theblackferret]

Jan 27, 2018 15:43:56 GMT castlebar said:

Red Rovers were 5/- for adults (as were Green Rovers) when first issued. Half price for children @ 2/6d

Twin Rovers were 8/6d for adults

I think "Golden Rovers" were 10/6d

You're spot-on with Golden Rovers-my aunt used one in 1963(?) on a trip to us near Maidstone from her bunker base in Slough. Always wondered if the ticket title didn't actually refer to the sort of hound ladies like her were reduced to keeping in their reduced circumstances, instead of the usual Crufts-winning miniatures.

[Dstock7080]

Jan 27, 2018 12:38:08 GMT Colin D said:

There was also a Twin Rover that could be used on the UndergrounD and buses.

Jan 27, 2018 15:43:56 GMT castlebar said:

Red Rovers were 5/- for adults (as were Green Rovers) when first issued. Half price for children @ 2/6d

Twin Rovers were 8/6d for adults

I think "Golden Rovers" were 10/6d

ah Twin Rovers! i was trying to remember!

[Deleted]

Jan 27, 2018 17:12:41 GMT Dstock7080 said:

Jan 27, 2018 12:38:08 GMT Colin D said:

There was also a Twin Rover that could be used on the UndergrounD and buses.

Jan 27, 2018 15:43:56 GMT castlebar said:

Red Rovers were 5/- for adults (as were Green Rovers) when first issued. Half price for children @ 2/6d

Twin Rovers were 8/6d for adults

I think "Golden Rovers" were 10/6d

ah Twin Rovers! i was trying to remember!

Golden Rovers were introduced by London Country after the split from LT.

[revupminster]

I was a booking clerk from 1967 and cannot remember Golden Rovers. I only remember selling Red Rovers and Twin rovers as we got commission on them as we did for the publications and season ticket cases.

[stapler]

Commission -- yes, because my source of Red Rovers was a newsagent's shop. It was a real nuisance you couldn't buy them from bus conductors (presumably because the conductors' Gibson machines didn't have date wheels).
Presumably, they were a device to encourage wide-ranging leisure and pleasure travel. When the minimum (2-stage) fare was only 3d and quite a reasonable journey of 5 or so miles less than a shilling, five bob was a big outlay. A 10 mile journey (nowadays eg from zone 4 or 5) off peak day return into London by train or tube was, as I remember it, 3/3 in about 1962.
We forget how cheap LT travel was then, even compared with wages at about £12 a week. Flanders and Swann, in their song Omnibus, had the lines "If tickets cost a pound apiece..Why should you make a fuss?
It's worth it just to ride inside
That thirty-foot-long by ten-foot-wide, Inside that monarch of the road, Observer of the Highway Code,
That big six-wheeler Scarlet-painted London Transport Diesel-engined
Ninety-seven horse-power Omnibus! "
In the days of three-halfpenny half fares, £1 apiece seemed as remote as Doomsday.

[castlebar]

Well said Stapler, and the irony was whilst we had to pay a bus fare to get to the station to buy our Red Rovers, Country area bus conductors could sell Green Rovers as soon as you boarded their bus

[peterc]

Red and Twin Rovers were issued on special cards, only Green Rovers were issued as Gibson tickets. IIRC you had to go to a garage or tube station to purchase the first two. I had to go into North Street Garage to what I think were the windows where conductors booked in their takings to buy one.

Green Rovers were valid on weekdays after 9:30 but you needed to carry a bus map or flyer with the terms on as conductors sometimes tried to refuse to sell them earlier on a Saturday.

I am not sure if rovers were valid on night bus routes but these were so infrequent that the possibility never arose for me. During the day it was easy, if it was a red London bus then it was valid. There were restrictions on which services a Twin Rover could be used on (certainly not on the far north end of the Bakerloo)and on Green Rovers where a route went outside the LT area. There was also a suppliment payable if you went through the Darford Tunnel. The run on the tunnel approach at speed in a GS was quite an experience.

[stapler]

As a long-lapsed member of the Transport Ticket Society, I seem to remember that Country Area Gibsons, and Green Line Setrights did have date wheels, to cater for the possibility of day returns. So a dated Green Rover could be issued on them. What I don't know was whether you had to have multiple Gibson tickets to make up the five bob.
I did at one time have a continuous reel of 44 twopenny halves on trolleybus 557, but I'm afraid I don't have it now.

[roythebus]

I'm sure Golden Rovers were available in the days LT ran the country buses as it was also available on Green line Coaches. somewhere I've got a box full of old Rover tickets.

Red Rovers were only available at weekends if I remember correctly or maybe only after 0930 M-F, any time at weekends. Same with twin rovers. I don't recall any limit on going to Watford Junction on a twin rover on the Bakerloo although I never done the job, though there might have been a restriction on the top end of the Met beyond Ricky.

The best way to get an underground "rover" during the week when bunking off school was to go to the local station and get a half return to somewhere like Southgate which was 3/3d from Hammersmith. the clerk would cut the ticket diagonally to indicate it was a half ticket (obvious). the 3/3d fare extended a long way on all the other lines, Hainault loop, Uxbridge, Edgware, Morden...just had to make sure the 2nd TTI wasn't the same bloke as the first one. Having said that I can only recall getting the ticket inspected about 3 times, and that was usually on the Met main.

I learnt a lot about the Underground by not going to school when I should have!

3/3d was about 16p in today's money.


edited to add I done the Dartford Tunnel once in a GS either on the 300 or 399 as it was renumbered, I never got charged an excess on there. As stated, the ride on the GS to the tunnel was "lively" with a lot ov vibration which, all these years later, I can attribute to a very worn propshaft Layrub coupling or worn centre prop bearing rubber.

[countryman]

Red Rovers and Twin Rovers were available all week during the late 60s. My friends and I often used them during school summer holidays.

[stapler]

Certainly Red Rovers weren't generally available M-F at first. They may have relented in the August school holidays and later on when they discovered there was no revenue loss. AIRI, those you got from newsagents were detached from books by perforations. Those from stations were on season ticket shaped card, and had the name of the issuing BO in small print under the date panel.
My friends and I were really taken with being able to hop on and off at will, but my parents, who had been used to the LCC shilling all day tickets pre-war, were underwhelmed.
The trouble with using child bisects was that you couldn't go through the barrier at the end and back shortly after. There weren't many bisects around, and even the most bored or dozy ticket collector was apt to notice them. They were OK if you just stayed on the trains and stations.

[revupminster]

Jan 29, 2018 0:54:59 GMT roythebus said:

The best way to get an underground "rover" during the week when bunking off school was to go to the local station and get a half return to somewhere like Southgate which was 3/3d from Hammersmith. the clerk would cut the ticket diagonally to indicate it was a half ticket (obvious).

Cutting the ticket in half vertically for a single and diagonally for returns was used when the demand was not enough to have a pre-printed child stock. The Single tickets would have the price on a single ticket three times, left, centre, and right. Edmonson tickets also had a ticket number at each end and were the only ones that could be cut in half whereas Rapid/Mini/Ultimatic tickets had only one number.

The half left over was placed in a groove on the ticket rack lid above it's tube. Every night the half tickets were added up as a credit in the daily summary as the original ticket was accounted for at the full price in the daily proof books.

[Deleted]

I've dug out the Capital Transport "London Country" book.
The Golden Rover was introduced by LCBS on 16th August 1970, priced 15/- (so having exactly 6 months on sale at pre-decimal prices!)

[peterc]

Jan 29, 2018 8:16:52 GMT stapler said:

Certainly Red Rovers weren't generally available M-F at first. They may have relented in the August school holidays and later on when they discovered there was no revenue loss. AIRI, those you got from newsagents were detached from books by perforations. Those from stations were on season ticket shaped card, and had the name of the issuing BO in small print under the date panel.
My friends and I were really taken with being able to hop on and off at will, but my parents, who had been used to the LCC shilling all day tickets pre-war, were underwhelmed.
The trouble with using child bisects was that you couldn't go through the barrier at the end and back shortly after. There weren't many bisects around, and even the most bored or dozy ticket collector was apt to notice them. They were OK if you just stayed on the trains and stations.

The terms seem to have changed over the years. One of the few bus maps to survive from my teenage collection is a 1967 Central Area. The information section includes this:

Red Rovers (adult 6/- childred 3/-) give you a whole Saturday or Sunday's unlimited travel over 1500 miles of Central (red) bus routes. Twin Rovers give you this unlimited bus travel PLUS the freedom of the Underground (on the Metropolitan Line as far out as Rickmansworth only). They cost 10/- (children 5/-). Rover Tickets are available on Saturdays and Sundays and on Bank Holidays - buy them at Central Bus Garages, at most Underground stations or at agents of Victoria Coach Station, on the day or from the previous Monday onwards.

I had forgotten about the VCS agents as there were none near me. There certainly wasn't the same degree of availibility that there was when local shops started selling Travelcards.

Since writing that I have found another piece of ephemera that states that Rovers couldn't be bought from stations north of Queens Park on the Bakerloo. Probably the source of my belief that Twin Rovers were restricted there.

With regard to Green Rovers I only remember ever been given a single Gibson ticket. When the first route through the tunnel was introduced I an sure that I had to to buy a supplimentary ticket (3d I think) in addition to the Green Rover. I can't find documentation for that as the tunnel service had been withdrawn by the date of Country Area map of 1967.

[superteacher]

Some really great replies, thanks all.

[spsmiler]

Jan 28, 2018 13:30:15 GMT castlebar said:

Well said Stapler, and the irony was whilst we had to pay a bus fare to get to the station to buy our Red Rovers, Country area bus conductors could sell Green Rovers as soon as you boarded their bus

paying a fare for the bus journey to the station is still the situation for people who want paper one day Travelcards, and (technically) for fares capping - although of course the bus fare then counts towards the cap!

--------------------------------------------

Although not quite a ride-at-will ticket I recall that for a while Sundays had a maximum fare on the Underground. 80p, I think.

Simon

[stapler]

Although the Red Rover outlets certainly weren't as common as Oyster Ticket stops, there was one in most shopping centres. The one I used was a stationer's/newsagents near Woolworths at Chingford Mount.
Revupmister, what was the commission, 10%?

[revupminster]

Jan 30, 2018 8:20:22 GMT stapler said:

Although the Red Rover outlets certainly weren't as common as Oyster Ticket stops, there was one in most shopping centres. The one I used was a stationer's/newsagents near Woolworths at Chingford Mount.
Revupmister, what was the commission, 10%?

Long time ago, but I think it was 10% as was publications. I think season ticket cases (single and double) was 5% and Left Luggage Lockers was 20%. We did not get commission in Left Luggage offices such as Whitechapel.

As for shop outlets; when they first started they could not be closer to a tube station than half a mile. Hornchurch corner shop diagonally opposite the station was the only exception I knew of.

[stapler]

In London Underground Architecture and History (Long and Magarigal) 2011, there is a photo of an ad for the Central Tube Rover "unlimited travel for a day" for £1.25. Photo might be mid/late 1970s.
Anyone remember this?

[snoggle]

Jan 31, 2018 22:14:57 GMT stapler said:

In London Underground Architecture and History (Long and Magarigal) 2011, there is a photo of an ad for the Central Tube Rover "unlimited travel for a day" for £1.25. Photo might be mid/late 1970s.
Anyone remember this?

In case anyone is interested I scanned the "Fares Fare" leaflet and put the scans on Flickr a few years ago. This shows the prices for tube and bus journeys back in 1981 and also prices for the Tube and Bus "day rovers" and other passes. The new Central London rover which covered buses and tubes in 1981 was just £1.60 while the Red Bus Rover was cut from £2.10 to £1.20.

They're all in a single album - link below.

www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/albums/72157632882951244/with/8516559870/

[Chris M]

Based on the consumer prices index, £1.60 in 1981 is equivalent to £6.32 (source: inflation.iamkate.com/)
The 7-day "Go-as-you-please" ticket, approximately equivalent to a Zone 1-6 travelcard, was £15 - equivalent to £59.25. In 2018 it is £62.30 with slightly greater Validity (Woodford-Epping, Northwood-Moor Park and Harrow & Wealdstone-Hatch End), plus National Rail in the zones (and trams and DLR, but they didn't exist in 1981)

[littlejohn]

I recall my friends and I always used it get our Red Rovers at a Tube station - usually Ruislip Manor and sometimes South Ruislip. We would normally get them on a Friday evening on the way home from school, dated for the next day (Saturday). Green Rovers were always bought from the conductor of the first Country Area bus we travelled on. Usually a 347.

[roythebus]

We could always ask Neil Sedaka, didn't he do a song about one day tickets?

[superteacher]

Feb 8, 2018 10:24:18 GMT roythebus said:

We could always ask Neil Sedaka, didn't he do a song about one day tickets?

OK it’s close enough!