The boss of under-fire Rail firm Thames Trains has moved from his terraced cottage to a plush £600,000 Henley mansion after picking up nearly £1m from a shares sell-off.

Roger McDonald, 45, is living a life of luxury in the five-bedroom home after moving there from a £200,000 house in Sonning Eye village, near Reading.

At the same time he is holding down his job as controller of Thames Trains, which runs services through Oxford and which has been criticised for giving a deteriorating service to passengers.

Figures released by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising last week showed over ten per cent of Thames Trains' services were not on time leading up to June this year. The firm was hit with a £633,000 fine.

Mr McDonald made nearly £1m after he was one of five rail directors who paid £10,000 each for shares in Thames Trains when it was privatised.

The firm was sold to the Newcastle-based Go-Ahead Group in March this year and Mr McDonald received £900,000 for his stake - 90 times what he paid for it. His job already nets him £100,000 a year.

Asked if passengers would begrudge him his bumper windfall, he said: "Some will, some won't. I took some risks and they paid off.

"It would be nice to celebrate success for a change but I realise that in this case it has been tarnished.

"I acknowledge this has not been a good time for us. We have had a bad spell for punctuality."

Thames Trains' sudden decrease in service levels was so marked it no longer met Passengers' Charter standards agreed with OPRAF, meaning season ticket holders will get a price reduction.

Other rail companies had a poor record recently,and last week Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told them to put things right.

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