A further advantage to the rail operators is that when the pressure is on and rail demand peaks, everyone operating the national rail infrastructure in the UK is under the same level of pressure. This was put to the test back in 2010 when Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted and demonstrated the weakness in the global airline trade.

"When the volcano went off, the load on our systems went up between 20 and 40 per cent and we survived and delivered a service, as did all of our customers," he says.

In the last year CIOs travelling cannot have escaped an increase in advertising by alternative rail ticketing online services. So is there increased pressure on Jack and the senior management team?

"The portion of the retail market hasn't changed, but the other players in the market have changed. An interesting side-affect is that every retailer of train travel helps us. Other players are helping get the message across that you can buy your tickets online and that is not a bad thing."

"We have one view of the customer, one service layer for all three vertical markets. We have invested heavily in our software and hardware platforms, but we are very crareful to get the most we possibly can for our money. In the last three years we have moved to an entirely new platform," he says of the journey Thetrainline.com has been on since the last .