We don’t usually do this sort of thing but felt we had to mark the sad passing of Andrew Dow aged just 71.
Andrew was the son of George Dow who pioneered diagrammatic railway network maps at least four years before Henry Beck’s map for the Underground in 1933. There is much evidence that Beck was not the originator but inspired and influenced by George Dow’s maps for the LNER from 1929, though the publicity machines now incorrectly elevate Beck (and yes his name was Henry and not Harry).
Andrew was fiercely proud of his father’s ground-breaking work and rightly so. Andrew wrote the magnificent “Telling the Passenger Where to Get Off” telling of George’s work and published in 2005. He wrote many other authoritative articles and books on related subjects and was a railwayman through and through as well as being a much respected historian. He was head of the National Railway Museum in York from 1992 to 1994.
We are proud to count him among the friends of FWT and will miss him greatly.