I often used to have to stand on my Virgin journeys. Bit off when you've paid for a ticket.

But there are lots of scams worked by those in the know. For example, when travelling into Birmingham in the morning I used to get the ricketty, old, single carriage Lincoln train. It was cheap and usually had plenty of room on it. It stopped at the NEC, then went on to New St and then off to Lincoln by whatever route. The stop at the NEC was interesting. Plenty of people got off and crossed the platform to catch the Virgin train that was heading up north. I questioned one commuter about this and was told that by the time the Virgin train had reached the NEC the ticket inspector had finished, so they knew they could switch trains with minimal fear of being caught.