Oral history interview with Richard Brown, conducted and recorded by Chris Kinchin-Smith at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Birdcage Walk, London on 3 July 2019. Duration: 1 hr. 21 min. 19 sec. Early career; Personal Assistant to Jim O’Brien and Geoff Myers (British Rail (BR) Joint Managing Directors); Business Planning Manager Intercity 1985-1988; sectorisation; Cyril Bleasdale; John Prideaux; InterCity required to eliminate subsidy by 1988; InterCity Manager West Coast Main Line (WCML) 1988; Organising for Quality (OfQ); relationships with British Rail: London Midland Region; investment in infrastructure over tilting trains; Director InterCity for Midland Main Line (MML) and CrossCountry; leadership challenges; staff attitudes towards privatisation; success of vertical integration; relationships with Railtrack; management buyout (MBO); elected first Chairman of Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC); MBO bid unsuccessful; management transferred on to work with National Express; reasons for MBO bid failure; appointed Chief Executive National Express Trains Division; acquisition of Prism train operating companies (TOCs); ensuring strong management team for each TOC; appointed to National Express Board as Group Commercial Director; relationship with Strategic Rail Authority (SRA); Alastair Moreton; Richard Bowker; TOC and parent companies development; First Group; comparison of TOCs over time; Network Rail; recommendations from the Department for Transport (DfT)’s Brown Report into TOC franchising; South Western Railway (SWR); Williams Review; Transport for London (TfL) concession model; reflections on Railtrack and Network Rail; comparisons with working at Eurostar; High Speed 1 project management; European franchising models; reflections on career; environmental initiatives

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.