Oral history interview with John Drake, conducted and recorded by Charles Devereux at the interviewee's office at Bird & Bird LLP, Fetter Lane, London on 4 October 2018. Duration: 2 hr. 15 min. 1 sec. Personal background; commercial barrister; engineering roles; headhunted by Alan Winton of Russell Reynolds for British Rail (BR) 1993; making British Rail Telecommunications (BRT) into separate business; joining BRT as Chief Executive; visiting neglected parts of system; transfer of 3000 staff into BRT; development of network uses; business plan; relationship with Railtrack; contract structure matrix developed; key problems; BRT designed to serve the railway; formalising externalities with Railtrack and customers; Bird & Bird law firm; railway culture; political background; encounters with Department for Transport (DfT); new safety culture; improving efficiency; cost reduction; widening of recruitment; BRT role as subcontractor to infrastructure companies; privatisation process; Racal; process did not realise potential; transition; public vs private sector attitudes; threatened strike at Preston

One of over 150 oral history recordings made as part of the Britain’s Railways All Change (BRAC) archive project. BRAC was set-up to cover gaps in documenting the railway privatisation process in the United Kingdom, between 1994 and 1997, when the government-owned British Rail was dismantled into over 100 privately-owned companies. The interviews capture the recollections of people involved in the planning and implementation of the privatisation process, the management of change and running the railway during privatisation.