Carnage beyond belief on UK's rails

Published on Friday 6 January 2006 01:42

THEY were among the flower of Scotland's wartime youth. The young men of the 7th Royal Scots, a volunteer battalion mobilised at the outbreak of the First World War, were in high spirits as they left Larbert railway station in Stirlingshire on 22 May 1915. Known as "Leith's Own", they had served in coastal defence but were now heading to the front line, a steamer waiting at Liverpool to take them to Gallipoli, Turkey.

As the troop train - one of two transporting the Royal Scots that morning - sped through the Scottish countryside, George Meakin was nearing the end of his nightshift at Quintinshill signal box, in Dumfriesshire, three miles north of Gretna Green. He was due to finish at 6am but had a special arrangement with his relief, John Tinsley, who lived at Gretna Junction. Tinsley would travel to work on a local train from Carlisle and arrive at the signal box at 6.30. Meakin, meanwhile, would note all train movements in the previous half-hour on a piece of paper, allowing Tinsley to copy them into the train register in his own handwriting.

The relatively simple deception had always gone without a hitch. Neither man could have anticipated how, that morning, it would have such catastrophic consequences.

There were two loops at Quintinshill junction, one running off each of the main lines. When Tinsley arrived for work at his arranged time, two goods trains were occupying the loops. The local train could have been shunted in behind but instead was left sitting on the main line - in broad daylight, only 65 yards from the box. A London to Glasgow express train was due shortly; Meakin had already accepted it. As the two men sat in the signal box, Meakin reading the morning paper and Tinsley copying the train movements into the register, word came through of the approaching troop train heading south. Tinsley accepted it as well.

Most of the officers and men of A and D companies of the 7th Battalion were dozing as their train - 15 wooden carriages pulled by an express engine - hurtled towards Quintinshill at 70mph on a downhill gradient. The driver had no idea the local train had been left standing on the line. By the time he saw it, the driver was powerless to stop. The collision was so violent that many of the crowded carriages on the troop train simply ceased to exist. In that instant the train, which had been 213 yards long, was reduced to just 67 yards. Incredibly, worse was to follow.

One minute after the crash, and with debris scattered over a wide area of both lines, the late-running north-bound express from London arrived at Quintinshill. It weighed over 600 tons and was travelling at full speed. Rail workers made frantic efforts to stop it but it ploughed straight through, mowing down many soldiers who had survived the first collision and were trying to help their injured colleagues. To make matters even worse, the gas cylinders which had been used to light the troop train began to explode, killing several more.

From their signal box, Meakin and Tinsley had a panoramic view of the scene of utter carnage, the direct result of their carelessness and inattention to duty. What went through their minds as they surveyed the mountain of wreckage with dead and dying men all around them can only be imagined. Of the 485 Royal Scots who had left Larbert, only 64 were present at a roll-call in a nearby field at 11.30am. The rest were either dead or injured.

The final death toll was 227, with another 246 injured. All but 12 of the dead were Royal Scots. The battalion's roll was destroyed in the tragedy, and it is probable the toll was higher. Around 90 of the young soldiers who perished were unrecognisable, a further 50 were simply never found. It remains the worst disaster on Britain's railways. Ironically the first station north of Quintinshill is Lockerbie, scene of the country's worst aircraft tragedy.

Meakin and Tinsley admitted they had simply forgotten about the local train occupying the main line. Both were charged with neglect of duty. Tinsley was jailed for three years and Meakin for 18 months, but both were released early. Public sentiment was with them, however, due to their previously unblemished records and the fact that the memory of the tragedy would remain with them forever and they were released early.

In Leith, where the vast majority of the dead had lived, there was devastation. A grieving crowd gathered outside the Drill Hall to hear a list of the dead being read out. The hall functioned as a temporary mortuary before the dead were buried in nearby Rosebank Cemetery.

The 64 healthy survivors of the crash were taken to Liverpool but were in such a state of shock that most were sent home. Only seven officers joined with their colleagues from B and C companies of the battalion to fight the war.

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