Sunday 16 December 2018

Travel concessions for being a chessplayer

In an attempt to demonstrate that I collect far too much information, I discovered that in 1913, the Victorian State Railways offered a concession for chess players travelling to official events. The concession for interstate travel was a 33% discount on a single ticket, while for country events it was at the 'Holiday Excursion' rate.
The conditions for travel were a minimum of 6 players travelling together (but no more than 20). The travel had to be authorised/approved by the Secretary of the relevant association or club. And a minimum distance of 25 miles had to be travelled.
This of course did not apply exclusively to chess players, as golfers, footballers and even quoit throwers were on the eligibility list as well.
Now, if I could only convince Etihad to reintroduce such a scheme.

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