'Anomaly' blamed for £10k first class railway ticket

GWR blamed an IT problem for the expensive fare and has since corrected the error

A train ticket between two towns just 64 miles apart has been offered for £10,000 by a rail operator's website.

The direct Taunton-to-Trowbridge trip was apparently advertised at the price by Great Western Railway (GWR), from 22 May through to 14 July.

It means the journey costs £156-per-mile and passengers cannot travel via Bristol.

A GWR spokesman blamed an IT problem for the expensive fare and has since corrected the error.

"We are aware of an IT glitch which has published fares for a first class journey that does not exist," the firm said.

"Anytime single fares between Taunton and Trowbridge are available from £12.70."

More on this and other news from across the West of England.

The ticket was also offered on the Trainline website

The ticket has also been available for 20 June on the website for Trainline, which stressed train fares were set by the rail industry not them.

"On quick investigation, the anomaly fare also appears on GWR's own retailing channels so it would appear that this is a fare setting anomaly, rather than a Trainline tech issue," a spokesman said.

Consumer expert Martin Lewis told BBC Radio 5's Adrian Chiles these sort of mistakes happen all the time and it is probably a database error.

"If something doesn't look right stay clear," he said.

"In an automated world mistakes happen."