Re: A Stroll round 1960s Saltcoats
Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:15 pm
The border is actually a little way further towards Stevenston, but to pass under the former Caley railway bridge over the main road always felt like the real entrance to Saltcoats. It used to be known as the India Bridge back in the 60s, due to an advertisement for tyres written across it in large letters. I believe I've seen it said that the bridge there now is a replacement and not the original ? ( PS That is indeed so; it was replaced in 1988, as described in the Herald Files here ) .
This bridge was the scene of a fatal train crash in 1939, with the train derailing and plunging down the embankment into what were then the grounds of the Miners' Welfare Home. We've featured this before on 3T, and there are some photos of the scene, and a link to a film clip, in a topic here.
And this article which appeared in the A&S Herald in the early 70s describes both this crash, and another that happened in the early 1900s on the main line at Saltcoats station. It appears with the usual acknowledgements to that newspaper. ( I believe there has since been at least one other serious accident on the Glasgow line, at Paisley Gilmour Street Station. )
You'll note the sobering suggestion made at the time that the Canal Street crash was perhaps due to vandalism on the part of local youngsters.
Susan
SALTCOATS HAD TWO TRAIN DISASTERS
Although the railway line between Ardrossan and Glasgow is one of the oldest in the country — it was opened about 1840 and has been busy every since — there have been only two accidents of any consequence locally in all that time, both occurring at the height of summer when traffic was at its busiest with holidaymakers.
As it happened, there were few local people injured, as the trains concerned were services from Glasgow bringing trippers to the coast. The two worst disasters each happened on a Saturday.
In 1906, on Saturday, August 18, 140 passengers were injured — three of them seriously, although there was no loss of life — in a collision between two passenger trains at Saltcoats station.
About midday the axle of a mineral train engine broke near Auchenharvie Colliery junction between Stevenston and Saltcoats, blocking the down line.
All trains for Saltcoats, Ardrossan and stations to Largs were transferred to the other set of rails, and with single line working natural delays occurred, and a train which had left Glasgow at 2.10, due at Saltcoats at 2.53, did not arrive there till 3.35. It was running on the "wrong" line and passed through the station for a considerable distance before it stopped. It was assumed that it would be backed into the correct down-line platform, but instead it reversed alongside the platform it had just passed, and passengers began to alight.
Meantime a train which had left Glasgow at 2.25 for Ardrossan and Largs had been sent forward and was approaching from Stevenston — the time limit between trains being five minutes, under the system of emergency signalling in use owing to the blockage.
The lengthy 2.10 train had discharged many passengers and was about to move off when the 2.25 swept suddenly round the curve under Kyleshill bridge — the bridge and the curvature of the line obscuring the oncoming driver's view — and it crashed headlong into the rear of the stationary train. Fortunately the crowded 2.25 had slowed down to stop at the station, otherwise the disaster could have been worse.
As it was, the composite guard's van of the stationary train was badly telescoped into the next carriage. Passengers scrambled through the windows of both trains and staggered on to the platform where many fainted from the shock of the collision, and others from seeing it.
Nobody knew exactly how many people were in the two trains or on the platform, but it is estimated there were four or five hundred milling about on the platform, augmented each minute by many people who had heard the noise of the crash and hurried to the scene.
The most seriously injured were three Glasgow men, one of whom had to have a leg amputated; the others had broken limbs and fractured skulls.
That accident was the result of a piling-up of unlucky minor causes: the blockage of the line, heavy traffic on a busy summer Saturday, railway officials under a severe strain, the obscuring curve at Kyleshill — and the fact that the first train had overrun the station. Had it stopped on its first arrival the collision would probably have been averted by the margin of a couple of minutes.
The other major accident at Saltcoats, which occurred 30 years later, was obviously due to one specific factor — although there was some dispute as to what it was.
On Saturday, August 5, 1939, an Arran boat train consisting of seven coaches carrying about 300, passengers left Glasgow Central Station at 12.30 p.m, bound for
Montgomerie Pier, Ardrossan; running on the old Caledonian line. By 1.20 it was crossing the bridge spanning Canal Street Saltcoats, where the engine left the rails and plunged down the embankment, becoming embedded in the garden of the Miners' Welfare Home (now the Maple Leaf Hotel). The tender and the first three coaches also tumbled down the embankment and were telescoped.
Four people were killed — the driver and fireman and two passengers — and 27 travellers were badly injured, all Glasgow people. About 70 passengers were treated for minor injuries in the Miners' Home, which was improvised as a hospital. Considering the number in the train it is remarkable that the casualty list was not heavier.
At a public inquiry held on the following Wednesday, it was established that the train had slowed down on the curve leading to Canal Street bridge and was travelling across the bridge at a speed of about 20 m.p.h.
It was suggested that the disaster was caused by stones having been placed on the rails by children from the area trespassing on the line. An experienced driver said he did not think a heavy engine could be derailed by stones, but a permanent way inspector said that after the accident he found crushed stones on the outside rail to the depth of a quarter of an inch -- even after 34 wheels had passed over it.
In his subsequent report to the Ministry of Transport, Col. A. C. Trench, who had conducted the inquiry, laid the blame for the disaster at the door of those responsible for placing one or more stones on the line — a very rare cause of railway accidents; and he pointed out that the accident was aggravated by the train passing over an embankment. Had it occurred 100 yards farther on in the cutting the results would probably have been less drastic.
Apart from these, the Ardrossan-Glasgow line has been the locus of only another two major accidents —both at the extremities of the line. One of them was the worst disaster of its nature in British railway history; the other, and the more recent, is already almost forgotten and was not particularly serious.
On July 27, 1903, an inexperienced driver of the Isle of Man boat train from Ardrossan misjudged his approach to the reconstructed platform eight at Glasgow St Enoch, ran in too fast, braked too late, and rammed the buffers at 10 m.p.h. The engine ploughed on into the station concourse, the first two coaches were completely telescoped and 16 people were killed and 64 injured.
In 1958 — on Thursday, July 17 — a relief train from Glasgow Central to Ardrossan with passengers for the Belfast steamer Irish Coast crashed into the buffers at Montgomerie Pier station and more than 60 passengers were injured, but only one seriously, and only three needed hospital attention.
For a railway route 130 years old the record is pretty good — in the three local accidents there were only four deaths; but it is a sombre souvenir that they occurred in a tragedy probably caused by the thoughtless vandalism of Saltcoats schoolboys.
This bridge was the scene of a fatal train crash in 1939, with the train derailing and plunging down the embankment into what were then the grounds of the Miners' Welfare Home. We've featured this before on 3T, and there are some photos of the scene, and a link to a film clip, in a topic here.
And this article which appeared in the A&S Herald in the early 70s describes both this crash, and another that happened in the early 1900s on the main line at Saltcoats station. It appears with the usual acknowledgements to that newspaper. ( I believe there has since been at least one other serious accident on the Glasgow line, at Paisley Gilmour Street Station. )
You'll note the sobering suggestion made at the time that the Canal Street crash was perhaps due to vandalism on the part of local youngsters.
Susan
SALTCOATS HAD TWO TRAIN DISASTERS
Although the railway line between Ardrossan and Glasgow is one of the oldest in the country — it was opened about 1840 and has been busy every since — there have been only two accidents of any consequence locally in all that time, both occurring at the height of summer when traffic was at its busiest with holidaymakers.
As it happened, there were few local people injured, as the trains concerned were services from Glasgow bringing trippers to the coast. The two worst disasters each happened on a Saturday.
In 1906, on Saturday, August 18, 140 passengers were injured — three of them seriously, although there was no loss of life — in a collision between two passenger trains at Saltcoats station.
About midday the axle of a mineral train engine broke near Auchenharvie Colliery junction between Stevenston and Saltcoats, blocking the down line.
All trains for Saltcoats, Ardrossan and stations to Largs were transferred to the other set of rails, and with single line working natural delays occurred, and a train which had left Glasgow at 2.10, due at Saltcoats at 2.53, did not arrive there till 3.35. It was running on the "wrong" line and passed through the station for a considerable distance before it stopped. It was assumed that it would be backed into the correct down-line platform, but instead it reversed alongside the platform it had just passed, and passengers began to alight.
Meantime a train which had left Glasgow at 2.25 for Ardrossan and Largs had been sent forward and was approaching from Stevenston — the time limit between trains being five minutes, under the system of emergency signalling in use owing to the blockage.
The lengthy 2.10 train had discharged many passengers and was about to move off when the 2.25 swept suddenly round the curve under Kyleshill bridge — the bridge and the curvature of the line obscuring the oncoming driver's view — and it crashed headlong into the rear of the stationary train. Fortunately the crowded 2.25 had slowed down to stop at the station, otherwise the disaster could have been worse.
As it was, the composite guard's van of the stationary train was badly telescoped into the next carriage. Passengers scrambled through the windows of both trains and staggered on to the platform where many fainted from the shock of the collision, and others from seeing it.
Nobody knew exactly how many people were in the two trains or on the platform, but it is estimated there were four or five hundred milling about on the platform, augmented each minute by many people who had heard the noise of the crash and hurried to the scene.
The most seriously injured were three Glasgow men, one of whom had to have a leg amputated; the others had broken limbs and fractured skulls.
That accident was the result of a piling-up of unlucky minor causes: the blockage of the line, heavy traffic on a busy summer Saturday, railway officials under a severe strain, the obscuring curve at Kyleshill — and the fact that the first train had overrun the station. Had it stopped on its first arrival the collision would probably have been averted by the margin of a couple of minutes.
The other major accident at Saltcoats, which occurred 30 years later, was obviously due to one specific factor — although there was some dispute as to what it was.
On Saturday, August 5, 1939, an Arran boat train consisting of seven coaches carrying about 300, passengers left Glasgow Central Station at 12.30 p.m, bound for
Montgomerie Pier, Ardrossan; running on the old Caledonian line. By 1.20 it was crossing the bridge spanning Canal Street Saltcoats, where the engine left the rails and plunged down the embankment, becoming embedded in the garden of the Miners' Welfare Home (now the Maple Leaf Hotel). The tender and the first three coaches also tumbled down the embankment and were telescoped.
Four people were killed — the driver and fireman and two passengers — and 27 travellers were badly injured, all Glasgow people. About 70 passengers were treated for minor injuries in the Miners' Home, which was improvised as a hospital. Considering the number in the train it is remarkable that the casualty list was not heavier.
At a public inquiry held on the following Wednesday, it was established that the train had slowed down on the curve leading to Canal Street bridge and was travelling across the bridge at a speed of about 20 m.p.h.
It was suggested that the disaster was caused by stones having been placed on the rails by children from the area trespassing on the line. An experienced driver said he did not think a heavy engine could be derailed by stones, but a permanent way inspector said that after the accident he found crushed stones on the outside rail to the depth of a quarter of an inch -- even after 34 wheels had passed over it.
In his subsequent report to the Ministry of Transport, Col. A. C. Trench, who had conducted the inquiry, laid the blame for the disaster at the door of those responsible for placing one or more stones on the line — a very rare cause of railway accidents; and he pointed out that the accident was aggravated by the train passing over an embankment. Had it occurred 100 yards farther on in the cutting the results would probably have been less drastic.
Apart from these, the Ardrossan-Glasgow line has been the locus of only another two major accidents —both at the extremities of the line. One of them was the worst disaster of its nature in British railway history; the other, and the more recent, is already almost forgotten and was not particularly serious.
On July 27, 1903, an inexperienced driver of the Isle of Man boat train from Ardrossan misjudged his approach to the reconstructed platform eight at Glasgow St Enoch, ran in too fast, braked too late, and rammed the buffers at 10 m.p.h. The engine ploughed on into the station concourse, the first two coaches were completely telescoped and 16 people were killed and 64 injured.
In 1958 — on Thursday, July 17 — a relief train from Glasgow Central to Ardrossan with passengers for the Belfast steamer Irish Coast crashed into the buffers at Montgomerie Pier station and more than 60 passengers were injured, but only one seriously, and only three needed hospital attention.
For a railway route 130 years old the record is pretty good — in the three local accidents there were only four deaths; but it is a sombre souvenir that they occurred in a tragedy probably caused by the thoughtless vandalism of Saltcoats schoolboys.