Andrew Dow was born into a railway family. After a first career in aviation, which later resulted in his book Pegasus - The Heart of the Harrier, he spent two years as Head of the National Railway Museum before joining British Railways as the privatisation effort started. He played a key role in the successful management buy-out that created Fastline Track Renewals, and he led the effort that resulted in Fastline acquiring and operating the first continuous-process track renewals machine in the country. He retired in 1999 and has since been writing, primarily on railways. He has also produced a number of DVDs on railway engineering and maintenance. During the course of research for this book he re-catalogued about half of the NRM permanent way collection.
