Peter G. Willey joined British Rail as a Traffic Student of the Manchester Division on the London Midland Region in 1972. Between 1972 and 1976 he undertook a thin sandwich degree from Wolverhampton Polytechnic in Business Studies with placements in various parts of British Rail. He worked as the Area Relief Supervisor at Liverpool Edge Hill between 1977 and 1979, before becoming an Assistant Station Manager at Newcastle in 1979, staying in that role until 1982. In 1982 he became Area Relief Manager at Preston for around two years before undertaking a master’s degree in Business Administration from Manchester Business School from 1984 to 1986. He then worked for Balfour Beatty Power Ltd. between 1986 and 1992, including four years on Channel Tunnel works and was based in Calais for two years. In 1992 he joined Union Railways, now known as High Speed 1, as a Contracts Manager, staying in this role until 1994 when he moved to Railtrack as the National Passenger Manager. He joined the Railtrack Privatisation Team in 1996 as Project Manager for verification of flotation critical documents including the Railtrack Prospectus. Between 1997 and 2015 he was the Senior Route Freight Manager for London and South East and then Western, Wessex and Wales.