Roger Salmon interviewed by Frank Paterson

Oral history interview with Roger Salmon, conducted and recorded by Frank Paterson at the interviewee's home in Cambridge on 30 October 2019. Duration: 1 hr. 41 min. 5 sec. Banking career; headhunted for first Director of Rail Franchising 1992; recruitment; setting-up team; personality analysis; Department of Transport attitudes; objectives; first draft franchise agreement rejected; Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) team working practices differences from civil service culture; network of contract documents; rolling stock issues; Andrew Pitt; Railtrack track access difficulties; British Rail (BR) good relationship with OPRAF; relationship with Department of Transport (DoT) and Treasury; documentation; breakdown of processes; Thameslink 2000; Allison Ingram; development of Schedule 8 performance concepts

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.