| Quintinshill rail disaster | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Date | 22 May 1915 |
| Time | 06:50 |
| Location | Quintinshill, Dumfriesshire |
| Country | Scotland |
| Rail line | Caledonian Railway Main Line (WCML) |
| Cause | Signalling error |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 5 |
| Deaths | 226 |
| Injuries | 246 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
The Quintinshill rail disaster occurred on 22 May 1915 in Scotland near Gretna Green at Quintinshill, an intermediate signal box (on what is now the West Coast Main Line) with sidings on each side on the Caledonian Railway Main Line (mainly linking Glasgow and London). The crash involved five trains and killed 226[1] people. It is the worst rail crash in the United Kingdom in terms of loss of life.[2]
The majority of victims were Territorial soldiers from the 7th Battalion, the Royal Scots, known as the "Leith Battalion" due to the large number of soldiers from that town. It was travelling from Larbert to Liverpool, with the purpose of dispatching the troops to Gallipoli on troopships.
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A signalman shunted a local train on to the opposite direction railway line (the "up" line) to let two express trains through on the "down" line. At the time, the two passing loops[3] were occupied already. The signalman forgot about the local train, resulting in a collision between a special troop train (hauled by Caledonian McIntosh 4-4-0 No 121[4]) and the local train on the up line. Immediately afterwards, the second of the express trains ran into the wreckage. A goods train in the down loop and a train of empty coal trucks in the up loop also became involved with the wreckage. In total, 226 people died and 246 were injured. Of the 500 Territorial soldiers of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots, who were based at Dalmeny Street in Edinburgh – part of the 52nd Lowland Division – on the troop train, only 57 men were present for roll call at 4pm that afternoon, along with seven officers. The disaster was made much worse by fire caused by obsolete wooden-framed and wooden-panelled carriages with gas lighting and the coal from the bunkers of the steam engines. The precise number of fatalities is not known because the roll list of the regiment was destroyed by the fire.
The accident occurred at a change of shift: George Meakin had worked the night shift and was relieved by James Tinsley. These two men had an informal agreement whereby if the local train was stopping at Quintinshill, Tinsley would travel on it to work and save himself a long walk, but this meant he started work half an hour late. This malpractice would have been revealed in the train register that listed the train movements and had to be completed by the signalman on duty. Meakin recorded all the details of that half hour on a piece of paper and then Tinsley, to disguise his late arrival, would copy this into the train register in his own hand. This arrangement and chatter about war news distracted Tinsley so that he forgot about the local train on which he had arrived. Both signalmen had developed sloppy practices and neglected several standard safety procedures required by the rules.
The accident was exacerbated because one of the trains involved was a troop train. The great wartime traffic and a shortage of carriages meant that the railway company had to press into service obsolete Great Central Railway stock. These carriages had wooden bodies and frames, so had very little crash resistance compared with steel framed carriages, and were gas-lit. The gas (oil-gas) was stored in reservoirs slung under the underframe. These reservoirs had just been charged and this, plus the lack of available water, kept the resulting fire burning for two days. It was reported at the time that not one lump of coal from the northbound coal train or the locomotives was found after the fire was extinguished, but this may be more exaggerated reporting than fact. The southbound coal train was returning empty wagons to South Wales: it was a Jellicoe Special serving the Royal Navy. The fire probably killed more people than the crash did.
A further contributory factor was the remote location of the junction. Fire appliances required four hours to arrive from Carlisle and had to travel the last mile over fields.
It was the first major British disaster in which a great number of the dead were not recovered as bodies, being wholly consumed by the flames. This resulted in an early decision to deal with the tragedy by means of a mass grave.
The dead troops are buried in Edinburgh's Rosebank Cemetery on Pilrig Street in a plot in the southwest corner marked by a large granite Celtic cross. The names of the dead are listed on bronze plaques to either side. Civilian deaths (both drivers and firemen, guards etc.) are elsewhere. The charred and unidentifiable bodies of three young children were found on the troop train. It is believed they had stowed away onto the train at some point. It was established that they were from Maryhill in Glasgow and are therefore buried in Maryhill Cemetery.
The surviving troops were transported south to army barracks at Carlisle. The next morning they were redispatched on a new train to Liverpool to continue to Gallipoli, indicating the rather callous attitude of the authorities at this time. They were put on board their ship, but then the message arrived to say that the surviving men and NCOs were not to sail. On their march from the port to the railway station the troop survivors, obviously dishevelled and demoralised, were mistaken for prisoners of war and pelted by some children (from an article by Alexander Thomson in the "Edinburgh Weekly" and related in "Britain's Greatest Rail Disaster" by J. A. B. Hamilton).
Today the disaster is commemorated by a plaque at Larbert railway station, from where the soldiers originally departed.
The two signalmen, James Tinsley and George Meakin, were sentenced to three years and eighteen months in prison respectively for culpable homicide due to gross neglect of duties.
A plaque was erected at the site of the crash in around 1995 by a Leith Women's Group, being inspired to raise funds for this soon after a lecture on the topic by a local historian (Stephen C. Dickson). The railway company had originally refused a plaque on the site as they felt it inappropriate to mark railway disaster sites (being bad publicity).
On 22 May 2010 a remembrance service was held in Rosebank Cemetery at the memorial to mark the 95th anniversary of the event. Wreaths were laid by the Lord Provost, local troops, the British Legion and local branch of Rotary International.
Bodies were returned to Edinburgh on 23 May, and taken to the battalion's home, the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street, Leith, where they were laid out on the floor in makeshift coffins.
On 24 May a huge funeral cortege assembled and proceeded slowly to Rosebank Cemetery on Pilrig Street. The bodies were escorted by the 15th and 16th battalions Royal Scots, the Edinburgh Pals battalion recently assembled and still undergoing training. The cortege took four hours to complete its task.
Edinburgh, which was still separate from Leith at that date, refused to fly flags at half-mast, angering many of the local inhabitants, in their lack of sympathy to their neighbouring community.
The Quintinshill disaster would have been avoided if the railway line had been equipped with track circuits, which detect the presence of trains and prevent the signals being changed to "clear". As Quintinshill had good visibility from the signal box it would have had low priority for the fitting of track circuits.
Quintinshill signal box was also supplied with "lever collars" – devices that should have been slipped over the signal levers to remind the signalmen not to move them until the obstruction had been cleared – but, despite written instructions, the signalmen had lost the habit of using them. These lever collars are not automatic like track circuits, and hence are not foolproof, but remain in common use to this day.
Hutchinson, the fireman of the waiting local train, had reported to the signal box to remind the signalman that they were at a stand but he failed to ensure that the reminder collars were placed over the signal levers (in accordance with rule 55(g) when there are no track circuits), an omission which resulted in him being tried with the two signalmen, but he was later acquitted as the prosecution offered no evidence.
At the Board of Trade inquiry the most controversial evidence was that of Hugh Urquhart, the out-door engineering chief of the Glasgow and South Western Railway, which exercised powers over the last eight miles of shared track from Gretna Junction to Carlisle. Urquhart reminded the inquiry that at certain times of the day this was one of the busiest stretches of double-line railway in Britain. While not condoning the short-cuts and fatal mistakes made by the signalmen Meakin and Tinsley, he said he was concerned that they should not be made scapegoats for errors made by higher-ranking officials. He claimed that the real cause of the bad practices was the fact that the last two express trains from Euston – the 11.45 to Aberdeen and the 12 midnight to Glasgow – were chronically bad time-keepers. This resulted in very unorthodox shunting procedures around Quintinshill.
The Board of Trade accident report concluded that if the signalmen had obeyed basic operating rules and used the safety devices provided, the accident would not have happened, and recommendations for additional equipment or rule changes were not necessary.
Meakin and Tinsley were the only signalmen in the UK to be given prison sentences for causing a crash until 1968 when a signalman was jailed for deliberately causing a derailment at Connington South on the East Coast Main Line in 1967. The signalman involved with 1892's Thirsk rail crash was convicted of manslaughter but discharged absolutely from punishment due to extenuating circumstances. The culpability at Quintinshill was much greater, as the report of the Lord Justice General (Alexander Ure, 1st Baron Strathclyde) stated:
"...They gave the signal that the line was clear and the troop train might safely come on. At that moment there was before their very eyes a local train obstructing that line. One man in the signal box had actually left that train a few minutes before when it was being shunted. The other had, a few minutes before, directed the local train to go on to the up main line. If you can explain that staggering fact consistently with the two men having faithfully and honestly discharged their duties you should acquit them. If you cannot ... you must convict them."
The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict in just eight minutes. Thomas (1969) lists eight separate ways in which the signalmen violated operating rules, mostly regularly, not just that morning.
The judge sentenced Tinsley to three years' penal servitude and Meakin to 18 months. Meakin was released after 12 months when he had completed his sentence with remission. After strong representations from Urquhart and other railwaymen, Tinsley was released at the same time, so both men served the same time in jail.
After release, Tinsley resumed working for the railway, for the same company, as a lampman and porter at Carlisle, only a few miles from the scene of the disaster. He had that job for more than 30 years until retiring. Meakin also resumed working for the railway, as a goods train guard. Some years later he was made redundant from that job and established himself as a coal merchant, trading from Quintinshill siding, right next to the scene of the crash. During the Second World War, he worked in the Gretna munitions factory until he retired due to ill health. George Meakin died in 1953 and James Tinsley in 1961. Although both men were released in time to serve in the Great War, ex-convicts were not conscripted.
As the incident occurred in Scotland and many of the fatalities occurred at the Carlisle main hospital over the border in England, differences between Scottish and English law rendered the guilty pair indictable in England for manslaughter, as well as in Scotland for culpable homicide. By Scottish law, it is the act that results in loss of life (regardless of where the actual death occurs) that is prosecutable and has to occur in Scotland. By English law, it is the loss of life (regardless of where the fatal act occurs) that is prosecutable and has to occur in England.
The Hawes Junction rail crash of 1910 also involved a busy signalman forgetting about a train on the main railway line. Likewise, at the Winwick rail crash of 1934, an overworked signalman forgot about a train in his section, and was misled by a junior. In neither case had track circuits been installed.
