Sunday return ticket

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Sunday return ticket in the GDR, 1965

The Sunday trip ticket was a special railway - ticket , valid on Sundays (and later on Saturdays , for shift workers then also common weekdays ), which included a discounted round-trip. It was first issued in 1896 by the Prussian State Railways . At the beginning of the 1990s, it was finally replaced by other discounts after 95 years.

history

Introduction and up to World War II

Since the passenger trains were not fully used on Sundays and public holidays, various private railways sought to increase the number of passengers by issuing cheaper tickets. For this purpose, the Sunday return ticket (then known as the “Sunday ticket”) was introduced for the first time on various private railways in Prussia with a price reduction of 50% . With the nationalization, these were transferred to the individual administrative districts. In 1896 the procedure was uniformly regulated for the Prussian-Hessian State Railways with two ministerial decrees.

The Sunday return ticket was popular with urban working-class families, among others, who used the offer for Sunday excursions into nature. The vernacular therefore soon called them “hiking maps”. In addition to the railroad, countless excursion restaurants and sights benefited from this offer.

Until the introduction of a uniform passenger and luggage tariff for the German regional railways on May 1, 1907, apart from Prussia, only the Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz Railway had taken up this idea, and Oldenburg followed later. In 1916, with the exception of 15 connections in Mecklenburg, the issue of Sunday return tickets was discontinued and resumed on July 1, 1921 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn . From this point on, the Sunday return ticket, initially only starting from large cities and for a radius of a maximum of 60 kilometers, was offered a third below the normal rate. The offer was continuously expanded in the following years. The directory of Sunday return tickets from Berlin in 1938 shows almost 250 possible destination stations. From the spring of 1924, the Reichsbahn directorates were given the opportunity to design the offers themselves. It was now possible in many places to get Sunday return tickets for 2nd class and the distance limits were raised. The traffic load of the trains on the weekends could be increased significantly. From April 15, 1926, the use of express trains was possible and Monday was also allowed for the return journey, but then without interrupting the journey in order to limit abuse by business travelers.

The demand for Sunday return tickets developed so strongly that many trains were already completely overcrowded on the weekends. For this reason, on April 5, 1927, the use of express trains (against payment of the full surcharge) was initially released on a trial basis and generally from May 1, 1929. However, it was left to the Reichsbahn departments to exclude individual trains from it. From October 1, 1930, it was also possible to return on Saturday and there were now comparable offers on Wednesday afternoons; it then applied from Wednesday 12 noon to Thursday 3 a.m. In 1931 there were around 60,000 connections in the entire area of ​​the Reichsbahn, for which Sunday return tickets were issued; in individual directorates there were up to 5,600.

From October 4, 1936, the period of validity was extended again. The cards were now valid on the weekends from Saturday 12 noon to Monday 12 noon. It was also possible to use the express, express, FD and FFD trains that were subject to a surcharge. However, the corresponding surcharge had to be paid. The Second World War ended this development.

After the Second World War until it was abolished

After the war, Sunday return tickets were issued again on the German railways. After the Second World War, the tariff regulations were partially changed, in particular in the 1960s with the introduction of the five-day week, Saturdays were completely included in the period of validity. In addition, all connections up to a distance of 100 km have been released for Sunday return tickets, while the number of connections over 100 km has been reduced to a few exceptions. After 3rd carriage class was discontinued, Sunday return tickets for 1st carriage class were also issued. The period of validity was extended from Saturday midnight or 11 a.m. on the day before the holiday to 3 a.m. on the day after the weekend / holiday. Return tickets were no longer issued for trips on Wednesdays. However, shift workers who regularly had to work on normal weekends could receive so-called shift worker return tickets on any other day of the week.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the Deutsche Bundesbahn issued Sunday return tickets only on certain connections announced by notices at the stations. Some of them were used by the Federal Railroad as hiking maps for outward and return journeys to various train stations between which hiking routes lay. The motorization of the population in the Federal Republic of Germany led to an emigration of travelers from the railroad, so that from the offer in the 1980s only excursion tickets for a few very specific connections were left, which were soon completely removed from the offer.

The Sunday return ticket was retained in the GDR and was only abolished in the early 1990s after German reunification. It was available to everyone and granted a discount of 33 1/3 percent for tickets for any route up to 100 kilometers and for selected connections, especially connections between individual cities, such as between Leipzig and Dresden, and beyond. It was valid from midnight on Saturday to 3 a.m. on Monday and from 11 a.m. on the day before a public holiday to 3 a.m. on the day after a public holiday. The same discount rate was available for shiftworker return tickets upon application, which - depending on the application - were also valid on other days of the week. At the DR, too, there were hiking Sunday return tickets in selected routes, where a hiking distance between two train stations could be covered at the destination.

Output format

Characteristic of the Sunday return ticket , which was usually held as an Edmondson ticket , was the blue vertical median strip throughout the entire time it was issued, unless it was a transition ticket from 3rd to 2nd class. In the latter case, a blue bar ran from the bottom left to the top right. It was used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR with handwritten identification but also for other special tickets.

Web links

  • Joachim Fricke: The history of the Sunday return ticket on technikmuseum.de . Revised 2005, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  • Thomas Noßke: Sunday return tickets . Online contribution on the Merseburg University of Applied Sciences website. Retrieved September 1, 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Cauer: Operation and traffic of the Prussian State Railways - second part: Passenger and goods traffic of the combined Prussian and Hessian State Railways. Springer: Berlin 1903. p. 25.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Jochen Fricke: The history of the Sunday return ticket . Online . Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c Thomas Noßke: Sunday return tickets . Online . Article on the Merseburg University of Applied Sciences website. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  4. ^ Deutsche Reichsbahn, course books summer 1960 compared to course book winter 1968/69
  5. ↑ Deutsche Bundesbahn, Official Course Book Complete Edition, Winter 1970/71, p. 28.
  6. ↑ DV 601 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Appendix I, p. 113.
  7. ↑ a b Deutsche Reichsbahn, Kursbuch 1988/89, p. 7