Meet the team

Andy Mellors joined British Rail as an engineering management trainee in 1988, graduating in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College in 1992. 

After undertaking various engineering and production roles in London and Liverpool, Andy joined FirstGroup in 2002, becoming Eng ineering Director for First North Western (2003), before moving to similar roles at First Scotrail (2004) and then First Great Western (now Great Western Railway) in 2007 where he was also Deputy Managing Director.

In 2017, Andy became Managing Director for the new South Western Railway franchise, before moving into the role of Managing Director, Non-Franchised Businesses for First Rail in 2020.  In this role, he oversaw the mobilisation of Lumo, the award-winning open-access operation between London, Newcastle and Edinburgh, the successful post-pandemic recovery of Hull Trains, First Rail’s open-access business operating between London and Hull as well as the expansion of First Customer Contact who provide customer relations services to a number of Train Operating Companies.

Having supported the senior team at Avanti West Coast in developing and delivering their recovery programme from Summer 2022, Andy was appointed Managing Director in March 2023.