To give them credit that is quite a novel way of trying to avoid the fare
Here's another one (slightly off topic).
On late night trains at origin station I like to open one train door and check tickets before people board. That way nobody gets on without a valid ticket as they have to buy it off me at the door or go away.
A young man (male A)approached the door with a single ticket from north wales to a midlands station connecting onto my train. I stamped it in the top corner and let him on. Another 20 or 30 people boarded followed by another young man (male B) who had a single ticket from the same north wales station to the same station in the midlands as male A. His ticket had a rubbed off stamp on the top right corner but I could not make the digits out.
You have to appreciate I can't afford to waste too much time on one person otherwise the flow of passengers waiting to board very quickly increases into a queue which would result in a delay.
Now there are no opening windows on my train, nobody has passed a ticket over my shoulder to another passenger and no other doors are released. So how can it be the same ticket I checked earlier? Still confused, I let him on. While I was checking other passengers on, my mind was still ticking away trying to work out wtf had happened
.
My driver then decided to put me out my misery as he was standing on the platform getting great joy watching the fare evaders being refused travel, I would never have been able to imagine this one;
Male A went into another carriage, forced a small gap between the rubber strips of a double door (class 170) and passed the ticket through to his mate. I was very impressed
. So impressed infact that I threw them both off as neither had a valid ticket now it had been transferred.