IT sounds absurd that a person sitting on a train might have paid a return fare of up to £50 more for their East Lancashire journey than the man or woman sitting alongside them.

But that's the situation if you buy a first class class ticket from Clitheroe, Blackburn or Burnley to, say, Carlisle. It will cost you between £107 and £113 compared with just £61 from Preston.

On top of that you will be paying your £50 for a class that doesn't exist on the East Lancs leg of the trip which normally costs between £4.05 and £7.60 second class.

Virgin Trains admit it's not the first time such anomalies have arisen and blame the complexity of fare structures because of the different companies involved in the journey.

But if the companies find the situation so complex that they didn't even realise they have been selling first class tickets for trips where there are no first class seats, what chance has the poor rail traveller got?

Many will say that this situation, now being investigated by Trading Standards, highlights the sorry state our railway system has fallen into in recent years.

And many more will argue that situations like this are examples of the scant regard given generally to passengers. Small wonder, too, that we are unable to move traffic off our overcrowded roads.