100 years ago today, the worst rail disaster in British history occurred at Quintinshill near Gretna Green in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. On May 22nd 1915, a devastating crash involving a total of five trains, killed 226 people and injured a further 246. The vast majority of those killed were territorial soldiers of the 1/7th (Leith) Battalion, Royal Scots, on their way to participate in the Gallipoli campaign. Disaster stuck when a troop train headed for Liverpool struck a passenger train that …
Disaster
‘The awful catastrophe which occurred at the Tay Bridge on the last Sunday of the year is still the all-absorbing theme of conversation in the community…’ A section of the Tay Bridge, which connects Dundee and Wormit in Fife, collapsed during a terrible storm on the night of 28 December 1879. Tragically, a Dundee-bound train plunged into the freezing waters of the river, with the loss of 60 lives (although some estimate the loss to have been 75 lives). Graphic illustrated the scenes …