Another place to book train tickets?

Yes. Realising how popular Railtrack's online train timetables were, Railtrack and FirstGroup, which runs Great Western Trains and more than 10,000 buses, decided to launch their own booking service. This makes perfect sense, until you realise that thetrainline.com got there first.

But the Trainline has its shortcomings, doesn't it?

It doesn't include every train, and customers (myself included) have complained about tickets not turning up at stations for collection. But on the whole, it's a reasonable way of comparing the price of the many different tickets created by privatised companies.

So the train companies compete with each other, and the ticket agencies compete for custom, too?

Exactly. According to managing director Elaine Holt, totaljourney .com uses "the latest technology" unlike its rival. It also plans to sell bus and air tickets, hotel reservations, car hire, books and CDs, as well as town and city guides. But it hasn't launched any of those yet.

And will the tickets be any cheaper?

No. "We are not intending to go into a discount war with trainline.com," says Ms Holt, explaining that the difference will lie in the quality of service, and that eventually you'll be able to compare prices for air, bus and train journeys.

So does it work?

Perfectly adequately, although I do prefer the Trainline's booking service, which has a cleaner design. One advantage of totaljourney.com is that you can search the timetables and choose a ticket without registering and logging in. Another is that it lists the phone numbers of local cab companies and the whereabouts of taxi ranks. Definitely worth watching.