I took a train trip yesterday without paying for a ticket. Not deliberate fare dodging: the guard’s machine just refused to issue my kind of ticket – other passengers were not affected. He told me to pay at the other end, but there was no one there. I was not prepared to queue at the ticket office just for that
In general I am punctilious about paying my fare – quite apart from the embarrassment of being caught, I prefer to pay the price & keep the service
But I have been musing over who gains & who loses from this incident
I am obviously better off to the tune of nearly £3
But half my fare would have been “funded by HM Government & your local authority”. So fellow taxpayers are better off by the same amount
I long ago lost track of how our railways are funded. But the line is one which was saved from the Beeching axe & used at least to get some kind of social need subsidy to keep going. Perhaps tax payers will have to fork out to make up for the loss of revenue. In which case the train company benefits
But all things considered, I am half way to persuading myself that everybody benefits from this minor misdemeanour
