Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 06:35 29 Mar 2024
- Bus plunges off South Africa bridge, killing 45
- Easter getaway begins with flood alerts in place
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
29th Mar (1913)
Foundation of National Union or Railwaymen (*)

Train RunningCancelled
06:24 Newbury to Bedwyn
06:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
07:00 Bedwyn to Newbury
07:22 Newbury to Bedwyn
07:49 Bedwyn to Newbury
08:13 Newbury to Bedwyn
08:46 Bedwyn to Newbury
09:54 Bedwyn to Newbury
10:22 Newbury to Bedwyn
11:29 Newbury to Bedwyn
11:57 Bedwyn to Newbury
12:52 Bedwyn to Newbury
Short Run
04:54 Plymouth to London Paddington
05:23 Hereford to London Paddington
05:33 Plymouth to London Paddington
05:55 Plymouth to London Paddington
06:00 Bedwyn to London Paddington
06:37 Plymouth to London Paddington
07:03 London Paddington to Paignton
07:38 Bristol Temple Meads to Penzance
07:40 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
08:35 Plymouth to London Paddington
10:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
Delayed
23:45 London Paddington to Penzance
05:03 Penzance to London Paddington
06:05 Penzance to London Paddington
07:10 Penzance to London Paddington
08:03 London Paddington to Penzance
08:15 Penzance to London Paddington
09:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
09:37 London Paddington to Paignton
10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
11:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 29, 2024, 06:50:26 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[82] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[76] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[74] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
[67] Return of the BRUTE?
[57] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[46] 2024 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
Author Topic: £10k first class fare Taunton-to-Trowbridge  (Read 5168 times)
didcotdean
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 1424


View Profile
« on: April 24, 2017, 17:09:43 »

BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):
Quote
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 (Great Western Railway)), 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."
Logged
bobm
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 9810



View Profile
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2017, 17:12:16 »

As one of the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) article points out, if you booked the fare through the Trainline you'd also be charged the 75p debit card fee on top!

Looks like it has now been blocked in any event.
Logged
didcotdean
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 1424


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2017, 17:22:41 »

The article correctly makes little of it apart from a curio.

I can remember seeing one of the non-public 10p fares turning up before - a 5p example of which has been captured here.
Logged
LiskeardRich
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 3457

richardwarwicker@hotmail.co.uk
View Profile
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2017, 18:03:25 »

The same fare showed up for st Erth to Paddington. It was only offered on trainline powered sites.

The erroneous fare was off peak 1st class singles. No such ticket exists.
Logged

All posts are my own personal believes, opinions and understandings!
JayMac
Data Manager
Hero Member
******
Posts: 18894



View Profile
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2017, 18:40:11 »

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

And remember, if you're going on to Melksham, split your fare at Trowbridge!

The story of the £10000 fare has just featured on tonight's (24/04/2017) BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Points West.
Logged

"Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the rest of the day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

- Sir Terry Pratchett.
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2017, 23:59:12 »

The same fare showed up for st Erth to Paddington. It was only offered on trainline powered sites.

The erroneous fare was off peak 1st class singles. No such ticket exists.

And Evesham to Brighton (I think it was) reported on the Association of British Commuters page  ...
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
LiskeardRich
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 3457

richardwarwicker@hotmail.co.uk
View Profile
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2017, 09:50:39 »

The same fare showed up for st Erth to Paddington. It was only offered on trainline powered sites.

The erroneous fare was off peak 1st class singles. No such ticket exists.

And Evesham to Brighton (I think it was) reported on the Association of British Commuters page  ...

I've just had a play around, and it's showing on every journey I have tried that has a anytime 1st single but no off peak 1st single fare available.
Logged

All posts are my own personal believes, opinions and understandings!
Noggin
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 514


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2017, 10:09:28 »

It's probably what programmers call a "Magic Number" and either originates in the database itself, or has been added by a programmer along the way.

It's typically a value that's large (or small) enough to not be confused with a "normal" value, and used to signal something such as the product being unavailable. The technique comes from the dark ages of computing when computers were very limited in storage and processing power, and is now frowned upon because it relies on the users of the data filtering out those abnormal values.

In this case it's likely that the programmers of the system using the data either didn't read the documentation so they could catch this value, or that no-one ever documented it.   
Logged
stuving
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 7156


View Profile
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2017, 10:38:53 »

It's probably what programmers call a "Magic Number" and either originates in the database itself, or has been added by a programmer along the way.

It's typically a value that's large (or small) enough to not be confused with a "normal" value, and used to signal something such as the product being unavailable. The technique comes from the dark ages of computing when computers were very limited in storage and processing power, and is now frowned upon because it relies on the users of the data filtering out those abnormal values.

In this case it's likely that the programmers of the system using the data either didn't read the documentation so they could catch this value, or that no-one ever documented it.   

If you look in the relevant document (Rail Settlement Plan / Fares and Associated Data Feed / Interface Specification) it says fares should be given in pence, and for those defined in the set for a "flow" there is nothing more said. However, for "non-derivable fares" it says each of adult or child fare should be 99999999 pence if it does not exist. Now that would be interpreted as £1,000,000, of course, not £10,000. So maybe someone miscounted the number of 9s, or was lazy typing them, when preparing a data file.

Mind you, it's not obvious why those fares should not be in the flow file. So it is perhaps more likely that the mechanism was used in the flow data file, where it worked provided all users applied the trap to all fares (why wouldn't they?). But no doubt there are all sorts of other less guessable variations on the same basic idea.

The same "8 9s" flag is used in a couple of other places, but neither is relevant to this case. That specification, dated 2014, is the one still on the RDG(resolve) website - so presumably still current.
Logged
Chris from Nailsea
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 17865


I am not railway staff


View Profile Email
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2017, 22:30:44 »

It's probably what programmers call a "Magic Number" ...

Or it could even be 'Graham's Number'.  See this clip, from QI.  Wink Cheesy Grin

Logged

William Huskisson MP (Member of Parliament) was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830.  Many more have died in the same way since then.  Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.

"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner."  Discuss.
ChrisB
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 12334


View Profile Email
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2017, 10:03:23 »

Picked up by the well-known IT e-news site The Register

Quote
IT error at Great Western Railway charging £10k for 63-mile journey ticket

If you didn't want to travel from Taunton-to-Trowbridge before, you probably won't now either

Great Western Rail has been advertising the bargain of a lifetime; a first-class journey from Taunton to Trowbridge for £10,000.

We don't know if anybody could hate cider that much, but the extraordinarily priced direct trip was advertised from 22 May to 14 July, leaving potential customers stumping up £156 per mile.

Great Western Rail said an IT problem was responsible for the anomalous fare, and stated that the error has since been corrected. "We are aware of an IT glitch which has published fares for a first class journey that does not exist," cameth the statement.



Typically, single fares between the Somerset town of Taunton and the Wiltshire town of Trowbridge are actually available from £12.70, a certainly more affordable price.

We welcome readers' suggestions for other ways in which Tauntonians could spend £10,000 to escape the small city. ®

The comments pages are worth a gander....well, some are!
Logged
froome
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 901


View Profile Email
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2017, 14:27:17 »

Just out of interest (and I can't imagine it would have happened) but what would have happened if someone actually bought one of those tickets online?  Huh
Logged
ChrisB
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 12334


View Profile Email
« Reply #12 on: April 27, 2017, 14:29:23 »

Probably useable!

The encoding on the mag stripe would have been correct for the journey sold.

But surely no one would ever attempt to buy? Mile for mile, it's dearer than NASA spent getting an Apollo to the moon!
Logged
Tim
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 2738


View Profile
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2017, 15:27:46 »

Just out of interest (and I can't imagine it would have happened) but what would have happened if someone actually bought one of those tickets online?  Huh

depends what limit you have on your card and it is possible that spending £10K on a single transaction would trigger a bank's card fraud protection.  I spent about £6k in one card transaction once (buying a car) and the transaction was declined and needed to be approved manual with a call to the bank.
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #14 on: April 27, 2017, 15:29:30 »

Just out of interest (and I can't imagine it would have happened) but what would have happened if someone actually bought one of those tickets online?  Huh

I expect the credit card company would have refused authorisation as an unusual payment on the account.  If not and it was a joint account or a company account, use of the ticket would have been followed by some huge questions!

[See Tim has a similar view - both posting at the same time!]
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page