UK-based ticket retailer Trainline has acquired French online booking platform and mobile app developer Captain Train to create a new digital rail ticket retailer for the European market.

The acquisition will allow Trainline to offer a one-stop-shop for rail travel across Europe by selling tickets for 36 operators active in 22 countries across the continent.

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In addition to offering customers worldwide access to European rail travel, the combined business will allow Trainline to benefit from the massive growth and transformation that is taking place in the £44bn European rail industry.

The consolidated business will benefit business customers, including corporations, travel booking tools and travel management companies.

It will also offer a better growth opportunity for train operators, who can strengthen their distribution, reach new customers and fill more trains.

Trainline CEO Clare Gilmartin said: "For too long, booking rail tickets in Europe has been an overwhelming and complicated process for customers.

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"We are hugely excited that, with this acquisition, Trainline is making European rail travel easier and more accessible than ever before."

"We are hugely excited that, with this acquisition, Trainline is making European rail travel easier and more accessible than ever before.

"Joining forces with Captain Train means that within a couple of clicks, any customer will be able to travel in Europe by train, something that today is really difficult to do.

"It should be easy to buy a rail ticket, simple to book, transparency on the best fares, no queuing in stations and a great customer service experience overall."

Trainline currently records £1.6bn of ticket transactions annually with 28.8 million visits to its website and app every month.

Captain Train covers 19 European countries and has over 1.6 million registered users and sells more than 5,000 tickets daily.

Captain Train CEO Jean-Daniel Guyot said: "We share the same ambition, and it was a natural step for us to decide to work with Trainline.

"The complementary nature of our offerings and the scope of the markets that we will cover will enable us to reach our shared objective of making rail travel in Europe easier."

Last year, Trainline was acquired by investment firm KKR with the aim of accelerating Trainline’s growth in the UK and supporting the company to expand into Continental Europe and beyond.