Railway scrambles to close loophole after 'golden tickets' let passengers travel for free across Britain

GWR allows passengers without a ticket to generate free seat reservations, which the company said was intended for people on long-haul tickets.

These free seat reservations could then be scanned at any ticket barrier in the country.

The Telegraph was able to travel over 500 miles in first class on several different firms' trains.

A journalist took trips spanning from Tiverton Parkway in Devon, to Wigan North Western in Greater Manchester.

These include trains outside GWR's service area, which spans from Cornwall to London.

Valid tickets had been bought on all the trains, the reporter stressed - but the reporter could have travelled 537 miles without paying a penny.

The error was caused when GWR switched to a new ticket software provider called SilverRail on February 24.

An anonymous train guard said that when the digital seat reservations are scanned, it displays as an anytime single ticket, which is "recommended to be accepted by train crew".

"It does not show anything untoward… the only way a train crew member would spot it is a reservation and not a ticket is if they manually stop and check the ‘ticket’," the guard added.

GWR was first made aware of the software bug a week ago, and senior railway staff were confused when the loophole was revealed.

GWR did not disclose how many journeys had been made through the loophole.

SilverRail said the error was a "top priority" to fix the glitch.

As of March 11, it is understood the software error has been patched.

A SilverRail spokesman said: "This was the result of a coding error and GWR are disabling this loophole imminently. This is a top priority for SilverRail to correct the underlying error."

A Great Western Railway spokesman said: "We wrote to all account holders ahead of the system change to explain how they could retain historic transaction records, and over 1.6 million customers have successfully moved across in recent weeks. Tickets purchased through GWR.com are also automatically emailed to customers at the time of purchase.

"Customers who may have missed those emails can contact our online support team [on 03457 000 125 and select option 3], who will be happy to guide them through how to retrieve them.

"We are also aware of a separate issue where some station gatelines were accepting seat reservations as valid for entry.

"Reservations are not valid travel documents, and anyone travelling without a valid ticket is committing a criminal offence."