Newport train conductor who sings to his passengers

In May, a video was uploaded on social media of conductor, Chris Edwards, 56, singing on the 11:16am train from Shrewsbury to Cardiff Central, which passes through Newport.

(Chris Edwards, 56, the 'singing conductor' making his way through the train to check tickets)

We joined Mr Edwards on one of his train routes - the Ebbw Vale service from Cardiff.

He has worked as a conductor for 15 years, but before that worked in a bank for 25 years, where he was in a blues band made up of the managers, and was lead vocalist.

“We used to sing covers, never any originals like I do now.” Mr Edwards added.

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When asked why he started singing on his train routes, he said that he likes to make people happy.

“I’ve only been doing it for the past three months. I decided to sing during an announcement one day and it made someone laugh and from then on I’ve continued it,” he said.

“I read somewhere that around nine-million people in the UK are lonely, are you never know whether they are on your train, so I want to make them smile.

“It also starts a conversation among people, they will try and guess what tune I’ll sing next. We are so wrapped up in social media we have forgotten how to converse with one another.”

Mr Edwards considers himself an old rocker, often singing to the melodies of songs by Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Pink Floyd and David Bowie.

He doesn’t sing all the time; he knows when it’s the right atmosphere to burst into song.

“When it’s an early train or it’s rather busy I tend not to sing, as people are not necessarily in the mood for it then.”

He often gets regular customers who have enjoyed their last train journey so much, they’ve taken the same route again.

“A colleague of mine was working one day, and he noticed that a group of people moved from the back of the train to the front, which never happens,” he added.

“He curiously asked them why they’d moved, to which they said that they were waiting for the singing conductor.”

Speaking about one late-night train journey, Mr Edwards recalls using the power of his voice to calm some rowdy passengers.

“It was the Gloucester train and there were two groups of people of different ages who were about to get into a heated argument,” he said.

“I went out to calm the situation and sang Smoke on the Water, by Deep Purple.

“They all joined in and sooner or later it became a competition on who could out-sing one another.”

Mr Edwards will continue his singing long into the future, but says if people ever want him to “shut up” he will happily do so.