Nick Brown interviewed by Frank Paterson

Oral history interview with Nick Brown, conducted and recorded by Frank Paterson at the interviewee's office in London on 21 August 2019. Duration: 2 hr. 32 min. 38 sec. Early career; Assistant Station Manager Edinburgh Waverley; Polmont accident; Glasgow Central Station Manager; Chris Green; station music; Birmingham International; John Prideaux; sectorisation tensions; Retail Manager West Midlands; Leadership 500; privatisation; InterCity advert; Association of Train Operating Companies; management buyout (MBO) workshops; Richard Brown; Midland Mainline (MML) MBO; British Railways Board (BRB) support; Genesis 125; Paul King; bid progress; access agreements; penalty regimes; liaison with other MBO teams; meetings; Ernst & Young; competitors; franchise awarded to National Express; organisational culture and structure; financial arrangements with National Express; customer service initiatives; staff training; Railtrack; culture; track access process; developing company image; toilet provision; family marketing; market analysis; reflections

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.