Ian Braybrook interviewed by Frank Paterson

Oral history interview with Ian Braybrook, conducted and recorded by Frank Paterson at the interviewee's home in Lincolnshire on 21 January 2020. Duration: 2 hr. 49 min. 33 sec. Early career; coal sector; Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) contract and privatisation; trainload restructuring; Organising for Quality (OfQ); business engineers revised role; trade union consultations; government directive for freight; Mercers review; privatisation preparation; Lazards; government misunderstandings; Railfreight Distribution considered not saleable; restructuring into three trainload shadow companies by 31 March 1994; Managing Director North East; team; area of responsibility; management buyout (MBO); employee involvement; bid progress; Wisconsin Central purchase of Rail Express Systems (RES); MBO bids for three companies; Omnitrax; financing; Loadhaul; Wisconsin takeover; management structure; Managing Director English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS); restructure; Ed Burkhardt; rolling stock investment; Leslie Smith; market conditions; Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) replacement 1997; management changes; Railfreight Distribution (RfD); impact of changes in energy production market; Settle-Carlisle upgrade funded by EWS; meeting with Brian Souter; reflections on working with Wisconsin Central; staff conditions; share price; engineering wagons allocations; reflections on private sector; relations with Railtrack; benefits of privatisation; retirement; 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.