Philip O'Donnell interviewed by Peter Willey

Oral history interview with Philip O'Donnell, conducted and recorded by Peter Willey at the interviewee's home in Buckinghamshire on 20 March 2018. Duration: 56 min. 26 sec. Career overview; highlights; cultural change from Civil Service to British Rail; radical vision for structure; rail privatisation compared with other privatisations; industry structure; Privatisation Unit; importance of track access rights in Department for Transport (DfT) and Treasury model; role of the Rail Regulator over charges and contracts; definition of track access rights; designing the contractual arrangements from scratch; role of DfT; industry re-organisation 1992; emergence of Railtrack management structure; flotation of Railtrack in 1996; role of the Rail Regulator; effect of cultural change on people; involvement in West Coast Mainline (WCML) upgrade; dedication of colleagues; shift from contraction to growth; reflections on privatisation

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.