Campaign Document in the style of a

Large Railway Ticket

'Large Ticket?'

Thank you to Ross Martin, Edinburgh, for giving me the item below.  It was handed to him recently by a campaigner.

At first, this  appeared to be an over-size railway ticket.  It is A6 size - about 4 times the size of the British Rail ticket that it mimics.

In fact on closer inspection, the item turns out to be not a railway ticket but a document on behalf of several unions, campaigning against the re-privatisation of the East Coast Main LIne. 

East Coast Main Line

The Line and the Locos

The East Coast Main Line, formerly the  InterCity East Coast Division of British Rail, comprises the 393 mile electrified railway between London King's Cross and Edinburgh with a spur from Doncaster to Leeds.

The Edinburgh- London line was built in 1846 to 1850 by NBR, NER and GNR .  In 1923, these three companies all became part of LNER who operated the line until Nationalisation of the railways under British Railways in 1947.

Deltic locos took over from steam in the early-1960s and continued to operate the service until 'High Speed Trains', took over, being gradually introduced between 1978 and 1981

Franchises for ECML

In April 1996, following the privatisation of the railways, the franchise to operate ECML was awarded to GNER.  It was renewed for two years in 2003, then for a further ten years, but revenue turned out to be lower than expected and GNER had to gave up their franchise in December 2007

In December 2007, National Express took over the franchise, but it also found that it was unable to meet the costs.

In November 2009, responsibility for ECML passed to the Department of Trade subsidiary company, East Coast Main Line Co.  They will remain responsible for the service until a new franchise can be negotiated, now expected to be some time in 2013.

Acknowledgement for the details above:
-  Directly Operated Railways web site
-  Wikipedia - East Coast Main LIne  page
-  Wikipedia - British Rail Class 55

Recent British Rail Tickets

Below is a recent British Rail ticket (front and back) followed by a selection of recent tickets.  This is the ticket style that is mimicked by the campaign ticket:

  ©

The genuine British Rail tickets below are all credit card size, about 3.3 ins x 2.1 ins.