LEGENDARY Wirral-born DJ John Peel never made a secret of the fact that his favourite record was The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks.

But there was only one song that could be played on the day that a train bearing his name was launched – his second favourite song, Does this train stop on Merseyside? by local band Amsterdam.

Yesterday, two days before the fourth anniversary of Peel’s untimely death at the age of 65, his widow Sheila Ravenscroft and daughter Alexandra joined figures from the Merseyside music scene to celebrate his life, and travel on the John Peel train’s first journey into Liverpool.

Amsterdam singer Ian Prowse performed Does this train stop on Merseyside? at a short dedication ceremony held at Liverpool South Parkway, and delighted passengers with an impromptu repeat en route.

Sheila said: “John would be absolutely thrilled to have an engine named after him that’s going to be running around in Liverpool, his very, very favourite city.

“He would be enormously emotional about it, because he was a man who did get emotional about things – not just Liverpool Football Club, but the city as well.

“John really cried through a lot of Does this train stop on Merseyside? because it meant so much to him.”

She added: “John wasn’t a train fanatic, but he enjoyed going on them and he would have loved this.

“He always said that Liverpool was an incredibly special place. It was a place of character and had a mind of its own, and because of this it meant an awful lot to him.”

His daughter Alexandra, 30, said: “Naming a train after my dad is a lovely idea and he would have been really flattered and honoured by it.

“He cried every time we mentioned Liverpool, and as he got older he would get even more emotional.”

Amsterdam singer Ian Prowse recalled listening to John Peel on an old battered radio as a boy, to catch the latest single by The Jam.

He said: “Listening to that music changed my life and made me want to become a musician. To have him championing one of my songs years later means the world to me.”

Among those present was OMD singer and co-founder Andy McCluskey, who said: “He was the only one who played our very first single on Factory records, so I rest my case for how influential he was.

“This is my way of recognising what he did for my career.”

The train was named by passenger transport authority Merseytravel, whose chair Cllr Mark Dowd said: “He was the kind of guy who everybody would have liked to have had a pint with.”

The train was launched on the same day that a new collection of John’s writings, The Olivetti Chronicles, went on sale.

alanweston