Sonia Braybrook interviewed by Frank Paterson (session 2 of 2)

Oral history interview with Sonia Braybrook, conducted and recorded by Frank Paterson (session 2) at the National Railway Museum, York on 11 February 2020. Duration: 1 hr. 10 min. 21 sec. Complexity of privatisation process; sectors worked without contracts; contracts required By Railway Act 1993; dispute resolution; self accounting unit (SAU); track access principles developed by Nigel Dewick (Railtrack lawyer); Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) role; Tom Winsor; preparing sale of freight; developing standard contracts; personal experiences; freight contracts approach; Claims Allocation and Handling Agreement; Section 8 license agreements; safety cases; Control mechanisms for working groups; freight vesting; reflections on work; voluntary redundancy; setting up independent legal firm for freight companies; recruited by English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) to establish a legal department; EWS involvement in Southall accident; EWS management ethos; Severn Tunnel inspection

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.