Mackenzie and Selby's Hunters, Chasers and Point-to-pointers: 1998

by Iain MacKenzie, Terry Selby

Mackenzie & Selby's Hunter Chasers & Point-To-Pointers 1995

1100 pages, Hardcover

First published November 12, 1996

About the author

Iain Mackenzie has been a keen railway enthusiast for as long as he can remember, it was unavoidable in view of his grandfather's working with steam engines on the LNWR/LMS at Rugby shed (2A). After a grammar school education he joined the LNER in 1947 and thereby caused a rift in family relations by joining "the wrong bloody railway" in the words of his grandparent! He worked as a 'passed cleaner' at Woodford Halse until he was 18 and old enough to become a signalman. This early experience gave him an insight into the rigours of footplate work and made him more sympathetic to the enginemen when he took to controlling the trains instead of operating them. After a course of instruction at the Signalling School at Nottingham Victoria he took charge of Braunston & Willoughby signal box on the ex Great Central Main Line.

British Railway regional boundary changes in the mid-1950s saw him as a signalman at Rugby Midland but the threat of electrification and modernised signalling was in the offing. So with the maxim "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em", he joined the drawing office team working on the Euston/Manchester/Liverpool Electrification working initially at Crewe, then moving to the Rugby office until 1966. From then until 1980 he was involved with various tasks on the Southern Region, finally leaving the railway service in 1980.

At the time of the publication of his book Mackenzie's Magic Steam, in 1990, he found what he called "the present laissez-faire attitude" to the railways particularly distressing and longed for the day when a forward-thinking government would encourage the railways to do what they were intended for . . . moving large numbers of passengers and freight loads without harm to the environment.