Trainline down: Train booking site stops working amid strike chaos

Online rail ticketing business Trainline has returned to profit in its first half as passenger demand recovered from the pandemic but cautioned that lengthy strike action may impact its full-year figures (Joe Giddens/PA) (PA Archive)

Rail booking website Trainline stopped working on Wednesday amid major strike action across the UK this week.

Visitors to the Trainline site were unable to access bookings or view train times as a result of the outage.

Website health monitor Down Detector registered more than 200 incident reports relating to Trainline, with the site appearing to go down at around 2pm GMT.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trainline announced that sales had fallen short of expectations as a result of the rail strikes.

The industrial action cost the ticketing platform between £5 million and £6 million in sales for each day of the strike.

Overall net ticket sales were up, however, as the travel industry continues to bounce back from the pandemic.

“Trainline delivered record net ticket sales, with growth led by international consumers, which became a one billion euro business for the first time,” said Jody Ford, chief executive of Trainline.