In message , at
10:58:07 on Mon, 9 Apr 2012, J Lynch
remarked:
I seem to recall that when the Victoria line was opened in 1969 some
form of the "new" gates were used at the Clapham transport museum to gain
entrance. However I am not sure that these were the full monty - possibly a
simplified mock up.

Somewhere I think I've got one of the tickets they used to sell. And you
are right about the mechanism - in practice all it would need to do is
accept a correctly-sized bit of card.

Either there, or maybe in Covent Garden later, they had a cutaway model
of one of the Victoria Line ticket readers, showing how it flipped the
ticket internally so it could be read properly, whichever orientation it
was presented by the passenger.
--
Roland Perry