Alan Dyke interviewed by Peter Willey

Oral history interview with Alan Dyke, conducted and recorded by Peter Willey at the interviewee's home in West Sussex on 6 February 2020. Duration: 1 hr. 1 min. 27 sec. Early career; civil engineering work undertaken in-house; changes in organisation post-privatisation; separation of track and trains; Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) Project team; political context; King’s Cross international; Thameslink station; St. Pancras; development of Arup route; options for Stratford Station; international field of bidders; competition with Railtrack for infrastructure resources; funding difficulties; Hatfield accident impact; interface issues with Network Rail; North of London International Services; West Coast Main Line (WCML) train paths unavailable; incorporation of Thameslink station into St. Pancras; changes resulting from privatisation; advice to High Speed 2 (HS2); involvement of different Secretaries of State for Transport

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.