A TELEVISION investigation into incompetence on the railway got people talking last week.

Channel 4 programme Dispatches sent a reporter undercover working for First Great Western and the results were very interesting.

During ticket-sales training, the reporter was encouraged not to offer cheaper ticket and staff at Newbury Station said they had been told not to tell passengers about 'split tickets' but would sell them if customers asked.

Such practises are bizarre in 21st-century life. It would be like going to a newsagents and getting a 50-per-cent discount on a chocolate bar as long as you can whisper the secret password.

But this is what the seasoned rail traveller has to put up with.

For the uninitiated, split tickets cover a whole journey in sections.

For example, travelling from Manchester to London on a direct train, you might buy a ticket from Manchester to Stockport and then another from Stockport to London and it might work out cheaper.

Train companies say ticket-window staff cannot always offer these tickets because it takes too long to work out cheaper options.

Customers asked the Department for Transport to develop a search-engine system to overcome this problem but, seemingly, Government officials found it too difficult.

It proved to be no trouble for passengers though and anyone can search splitticketing.com to do a very quick search, yet the rail service providers make out the concept is akin to rocket science.

Generally with train tickets, the longer the journey, the pricier the fare, but one of many anomalies is caused by the track works near Bolton.

At weekends, a Carlisle to Manchester single costs £54.30, compared with £47 for a Carlisle to Bolton ticket.

Carlisle to Bolton services pass through Manchester until engineering works end in October, so it is cheaper for someone heading to Manchester to buy a ticket to Bolton and just not do the last leg of the journey.

When it comes to train ticket peculiarities, this is the tip of the iceberg, and rail firms and the DfT have an awful lot of work to do to put things right.