John B wrote:

You think SWT employ dedicated security patrols to stop people not-
actually-breaking-the-law by doing dubious things with Megatrain
tickets? You're having a laugh, right...?

Who knows? All I know is that many people have been caught out by
railway stings when they thought that they had some sort of undetectable
scheme. You can read uk.railway and uk.legal archives for more.

If many of people start making a habit of this kind of scheme involving
Megatrain (or already have), I bet SWT *will* start operating stings to
catch it.

Anyway, they don't even have to do this for you to get caught. It'll be
enough that you bought a ticket outside Woking that never went through
the ticket gates at Woking.

The only thing that the Megatrain T&Cs say [http://www.megatrain.com/
uk/help/smallprint.php] is:

"Bookings are only valid on the journey(s) and places stated."

That makes it clear that break of journey is prohibited, and therefore
NRCC paragraph 6 forbids ending the journey at an intermediate station
without paying an excess fare. Now SWT just needs to prove that the OP
intended to avoid paying this fare (for example, by buying another
ticket that would let him through the barriers).

I wouldn't envy the lawyer whose brief was to show, based on that
wording, that our man was travelling without a valid ticket between
London and Woking. Even on a balance of probabilities, never mind
reasonable doubt...

The lawyer would also have the NRCC. And I think on that buying another
ticket to cover a part of the journey that under your legal theory would
already be paid for in order to get past the ticket gates would be seen
as evidence of deception.

Actually I think it would be easy to convict, you are right when you say
being caught is less likely (but still possible). The question is
whether it is worth it?
--
Michael Hoffman