Shortly after the gateline was introduced at Glasgow Queen Street, 2004 I think, I was on a late evening train to Edinburgh. Three or four youths, I think that's the only way to describe them, sat at a table just down from me. The first sign of trouble, and it must've been very uncomfortable for them, was that some of them put their feet up on the table. I'm sat at a table on TPE now with someone opposite me and I'm not sure that I could manage that, anyway...
We effed and blinded our way through to after Croy and the conductor, a young woman, came along. Of course they had no tickets, I could tell from the start that this was their mission for the trip, but their argument was that they MUST have tickets because of the gates, I liked their style. The conductor didn't get in the slighest bit agitated, asked them calmly a couple more times, and walked away. This threw them completely, all I heard was 'she's gettin' the ****'in polis' and they baled at Falkirk, to do what I've no idea. Try it again on the next train probably.
Another interesting observation, and it's quantity rather than quality from a 30 minute change at Wigan North Western this afternoon. This forum is full of stories about bad experiences with Northern RPIs, and a lot of shocked innocence into the bargain, but I passed through a Virgin revenue block twice to leave and return to the station. In the few seconds that it took me to do this both ways, I saw FIVE different people come round the corner in the subway, get asked for their tickets, sigh, swear or roll their eyes, turn round and go back to the ticket office to do what they should've done in the first place. None of them were in any particular hurry and it was obvious that they were just trying it on full in the knowledge that they'd just get sold the ticket if they were challenged. One of them would've probably come on the disputes section here all upset when they got a penalty at Lime Street or wherever. Maybe it was coincidental, but it was quite a bit more than I expected.