It's good that ScotRail and ScotRail guards have less punitive and more sensible policies for dealing with the potential problem.
You mightn't expect to receive the same concessions should you board a London Midland train from Milton Keynes to London with a route VTWC TRAINS ONLY ('what does that mean?') ticket.
Correct. And that is because 99% of passengers in LM land know exactly what they are doing when they purchase the VTWC only ticket based on the fact...
* It's considerably cheaper (due to there being less trains available.)
* they are taking the chance that they are unlikely to get their ticket checked on a train that the Guard probably can't get through.
* The ticket will get them through the barrier wherever they are alighting.
They are basically chancers and so deserve to be clobbered on the rare occasions they are tripped up. I used to catch the same people doing it day after day even after I had had a lengthy conversation with them the previous day or week about how they 'hadn't noticed' the ticket they had bought on that occasion.
They also clutter the trains up and prevent passengers boarding/getting a seat at the smaller stations that Virgin don't serve, and where the passengers are paying more than them to get left behind/wedged up against a toilet door because the train is full of Virgin's passengers.
The 'VTWC' change from 'Virgin Only' on the ticket has been a complete pain though as it makes it much more difficult to explain to the occasional genuine punter.
Beardy's 'fast ticket' cash gobblers are also very cleverly designed to offer the Virgin Only ticket before anything else. Probably an idea of Souter's I would imagine.
Euston to MK
Rugby to BHM
Rugby to Coventry (despite VT only having one an hour)
Coventry to BHM
BHI to BHM
Wolverhampton to BHM
I wonder how much money Beardy and Souter cream off those revenue streams without actually carrying the passengers?
It's an extremely cynical set up so don't blame LM on this one.