Trainline (formerly Thetrainline.com) is an international digital rail and coach technology platform with headquarters in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. It sells train tickets and

railcards There is no single 'discount railcard' available on the UK railway network. In addition to the large number and variety of short-term or localised promotional fares that have been available to passengers on the British railway network in recent d ...

as well as providing free access to live train times and

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

information through its

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

and

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

which is available on the iOS and Android platforms. Listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

, it is a constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septem ...

History

Trainline was established in 1997 by the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding co ...

, and online ticket sales began in 1999. It was operated under contract by

Capgemini Capgemini SE is a multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and data processing company. The comp ...

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

later purchased a 49% shareholding. In February 2004 Trainline merged with Qjump, its main competitor. Stagecoach sold out, with Virgin having an 86% shareholding in the merged company with

National Express National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...

owning the other 14%. In July 2006, Exponent Private Equity acquired Trainline. In July 2007, Trainline acquired Advanced Smartcard Technologies and ECEBS, signalling a new strategy to enter the

smartcard A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

market. Ecebs was subsequently sold to Bell ID in November 2012. The company was bought from Exponent by

KKR KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strateg ...

in January 2015. In August 2015, the company announced it had changed its name from thetrainline.com to Trainline. In 2016, it acquired Captain Train and re-branded it as Trainline EU. In June 2019, after an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

the company floated on the

. At the end of February 2021, Clare Gilmartin stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Jody Ford who had joined the business in July 2020.

Activities

In addition to the online service provided direct to customers operated under its own brands ''Trainline'' and ''Qjump'', it provides the website services for some of the UK

train operating companies A train operating company (TOC) is a business operating passenger trains on the railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways Act 1993. T ...

, as well as providing a rail business travel service direct to a number of large blue chip corporations, travel management companies and travel agents. Trainline also provides a call centre service to a number of the customers referred to above.

References

External links

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Trainline on Facebook

Trainline on Twitter
{{Authority control Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Fare collection systems in the United Kingdom Kohlberg Kravis Roberts companies National Express companies Route planning software Stagecoach Group Transport companies established in 1997 International rail transport retailers Virgin Group 1997 establishments in England 2019 initial public offerings