I’d like to give passes to my great-nieces and -nephews and other visitors to my layout. Can anyone tell me about the practice of issuing passes, and in particular, is there a source for photographs of actual passes (especially from steam days)? Thanks.
There is a small but very dedicated group of folks that collect railroad paper, especially passes. If you go to Google Images and search for “railroad pass” you will find many examples. Further information can be found at
http://www.railroadiana.org/paper/pgPasses.php
Many of the formal histories (books) of particular railoads will have photos of the line’s passes included. The manufacture of railroad passes for model railroads used to be quite popular (say about the 1960’s or early '70’s), and Model Railroader ran a number of articles in the magazine about crafting or designing a pass, and also had suggestions on some of the “rules” that often appeared on the reverse side. The NMRA bulletins from that same period also carried articles on these items.
Bill
Ya, when I started reading MR in 1971, it was common to see several requests each month from people offering to exchange model railroad passes. Seems to me MR or RMC or the NMRA Bulletin at one time had a “Pass Exchange” section(??)
