Real railroads had passes for free trips on their passenger trains a long time ago. These were given to company employees and their families and to other railroad officials.
In the past many model railroaders had passes for their model railroads too. There was quite a hobby within a hobby in exchanging passes with modelers all over the world. As a teenage model railroader in the 1960’s I exhanged passes with many modelers, with a collection of around a thousand passes. Railroad Model Craftsman, Model Trains magazine (long gone) and the NMRA Bulletin would list your name in their pass exchange columns and the passes would come flooding in.
This part of the hobby seems to be fairly dormant these days, as I imagine more recent hobbyists might not even know about pass collecting. It has taken on a new and more modern form these days - with e-passes. These are passes prepared in a computer and then e-mailed to fellow collectors. I’ve only a few so far, and now have one too. I just received a request for one of my e-passes from the San Diego Model Railroad Club.
In case you are interested in reading more, I have some info on my website along with some sample images of my passes over the years. See the link below my name.
Most passes were printed by commercial printers, and there were a few who specialized in them and who placed ads in model magazines. I was a little different, having my first two sets of passes printed this way, but then bought a small hand operated printing press on which I made my own for years.
The NMRA holds contests for passes at their annual conventions, and one of mine won first place way back in 1986 and this year I won second place at the event in Seattle. Lots of fun!
Bob Boudreau
Canada
Web page: http://www.geocities.com/fundynorthern/Passes.html
