Shaken and Stirred: Chaudhry-van der Velde MD West Midlands

This from Abellio/Mitsui...

Merseyrail’s Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde appointed Managing Director of West Midlands Trains
Merseyrail Deputy MD Andy Heath to succeed Jan at Merseyrail

Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde has today been appointed as Managing Director of West Midlands Trains, which will take over the next West Midlands franchise on 10 December. He joins from Merseyrail where he has been MD since 2015.

Prior to joining Merseyrail, Jan spent three years as Abellio UK’s Deputy MD. In this role he was a member of the Merseyrail board and played a critical role in the company’s successful bid for the ScotRail franchise.

Jan has also held a number of director roles outside of Abellio including Operations Director at South West Trains, Commercial Director at Southern and Operations & Retail Director at Thameslink. He first joined the sector in 1989 as a British Rail general management trainee.

Merseyrail’s new managing director will be Jan’s former deputy, Andy Heath. Andy first joined Merseyrail as Trains Manager in 1998 and has been Operations Director since 2005. 

He will be stepping into the role on 10 December, following Jan’s departure.

Merseyrail Royal Wedding offer

This from Rudi over at Merseyrail...

I thought Eye readers might be interested in the following:

Travel free by Merseyrail on Royal Wedding Day if you are a Kate or a William

To celebrate the royal wedding on Friday 29 April, Merseyrail will give passengers called Kate or William (or variations of that name*) free travel across the whole network for the day.

Right. The Fact Katepiler is packing his bucket and spade and is off to Liverpool!

UPDATE: This from the Hon Dave Spart...

Chiltern also announced that those named William and Kate who wish to travel to London and be arrested by the Met while trying to protest at the totally reactionary and feudal... (get on with it! Ed) ...could travel free.

NRESballs - Liverpool Street

This from the National Rail Enquiries website yesterday...



Mr Scales empire goes from strength to strength!

Trainy speakibold: Merseyrail

This from Rudi over at the Merseyrail Press Office...

It seems Eye's new Trainy Speakibold is catching on.

Witness this message from control:

"Netrail report a van has struck Ellens Lane overbridge at Port Sunlighty, no delay to services anticipated."

Deep joy!

Merseyrail's grand Grand National

Unnoticed by most of the industry Merseyside operator Merseyrail pulled off quite a coup over the extended Grand National weekend.

This from PR man Rudi...

For us of course, it was our opportunity to show to the casual user what we are about.

Eye readers may be interested to know that we doubled services on the Aintree route to 8 trains an hour in each direction.

We also laid on all sorts of entertainment such as Juice FM broadcasting their programmes from the station and entertaining the waiting hordes, give-aways (remember the flipflops for ladies day?), extra toilets (with dedicated cleaners to keep them salubrious) etc etc.


Over the 3 days we had very little delays and even fewer trains failing PPM; in fact on Saturday, in spite of all the extra trains and the crowds, our network PPM was 93.95%...

And here is our MD Bart Schmeink's thank you to staff:

Hi all,

Thank you so much for another great Grand National performance by you all over the last three days.

We've had more passengers than ever before, even more then in our record year 2008.

First indication is that more than 100.000 passengers travelled with us over the three days.


The whole system worked as smoothly as a swiss watch with all our units in service and every station chipping in.

Our overall performance, including our showbiz X factor at Aintree, has pushed our reputation on Merseyside to new heights.

I know I shouldn't push it, by saying I'd like to have the Grand National every day but then again these 3 days seem to get the best out of everyone.

Thank you so much for a great performance, a great day and another truly remarkable grand national event.

All the best Bart

Good effort.

Cheeky Merseyrail slips one in!

This from Rudi over at Merseyrail...

Our walk-on fares aren't quite the same level as those for "Newquay to Kyle of Lochalsh" but then your whole family can travel with us for a Fiver!

During December up to two adults and three children can travel anywhere on Merseyrail's Northern or Wirral lines for only £5 on any Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday after 15:00hrs.

This great offer will be valid until 30th December 2009. For more details, ring our customer relations team on 0151 702 2071 or ask a member of staff.

And there is free parking at our stations too...

If you're travelling to Merseyside over the Christmas period why not take up Rudi's seasonal suggestion.

Not only is the train fast, cheap and easy, it's also less likely to be jacked up on bricks when you want to go home.

Merseyrail abolishes kiss and ride

This from the Commuter...

Merseyrail has published it's own decalogue.

Good to see that they have already managed to surpass the eight 'thou shalt nots' contained in the original 10 Commandments.



Amongst the list of 'don'ts' is the surprising injunction that station car parks are not to be used as meeting places.

And as you can't loiter on the station either presumably vast numbers of local citizens are now in breach of whatever draconian laws are used to enforce this nonsense.

Just because you think you're innocent doesn't mean that you're not guilty.

UPDATE: This fruity suggestion from Leo Pink...

Is 'meeting place' the bowdlerised form of 'Thou shalt not dog in station car parks'?

UPDATE: This from Chionanthus virginicus...

So here's a bit of Merseyrail logic...

Command No 2: "Customers are expected to be in possession of a valid ticket if they intend to travel on our trains"

is listed as the

"...type of behaviour which is unacceptable and have (surely that should be "has") a detrimental impact on other passengers etc......" ???

Now cahrm down, cahrm down, it could only happen on Mareseyside !!

UPDATE: This from Rudi over at Merseyrail...

Believe it or not, nefarious practices do go on in station car parks.

I know of one car park which was being used by a dodgy local car dealer as his shop window to display and sell cars...

And there is anecdotal evidence of other types of dealing (don't know about dogging; maybe the CCTV cameras add another dimension to some exhibitionism enthusiasts?).

Our Code of Conduct signs are the "layman's translation" of the railway byelaws which run into many pages, are full of legalese and in their written form are about as riveting as the phone book.

As you will know, we are the only TOC to actually actively apply these byelaws to combat feet-on-seats, loud music from phones, drunkenness, smoking and other forms of anti-social behaviour which turns people off using trains.

And our passengers love it and so do passengers from other parts of the country who tell us that they'd love their TOC to do the same!

Rudi... a message for you...

The Fact Compiler is unsure whether this is an All Fools' Day spoof or not.

According to the Liverpool Echo...

MERSEYRAIL will give away 10,000 pairs of flip flops to footsore racegoers after Ladies’ Day at Aintree.

The flip flops – branded with the Merseyrail logo – will be handed out by volunteers to women waiting to catch their trains from Aintree station on Friday, and on the day of the Grand National itself.

Either way it doesn't matter.

As the PR who placed the story tipped off the Eye, it gets in!

Good effort the PR team at Merseyrail!