Why is a train crash remembered with a war memorial? And why is that memorial in Rosebank Cemetery in Pilrig when the crash happened near Gretna?
The Quintinshill crash occurred on 22 May 1915, at an intermediate station on the Caledonian Railway between Gretna and Dumfries. Involving five trains, the crash killed 227 people and caused by far the most casualties of any rail crash in the UK. Yet the story of the accident is not well known. The majority of victims were soldiers of the 7th Batallion Royal Scots, "Leith's Own", raised in Edinburgh travelling south from Larbert to Liverpool during World War I; and news of the crash was suppressed by official censorship "in the interests of national morale".
The accident happened early in the morning at a change of shift. George Meakin had worked the night shift and was relieved by James Tinsley. The men had an informal agreement that gave them longer in their beds: whoever was working the morning shift would catch the local train stopping at Quintinshill and start work half an hour late. The other would record the details of that half hour on a piece of paper and the man coming on shift would copy this into the train register when he arrived, to cover up his late arrival.
On the fatal morning, the sidings at each side of the double track were occupied. One side by two coal trains, one with empty coal trucks and the other with a waiting slow goods train. The north-bound express to Glasgow was running late and Meakin had transferred the local train which had brought Tinsley to work to the opposite running line where it stood stationary to let the express through. When Tinsley arrived at the signal box, the men were distracted by conversation about war news. The fact that the local train was sitting on the up line was forgotten and the south-bound troop train was signalled through. Running at high speed, the troop train ploughed into the local train. Carriages spewed sideways and crashed into the two coal trains in the sidings. Shortly afterwards, the Glasgow-bound express train ploughed into the wreckage.
It is thought that 227 people died and 246 were injured. Of the 500 soldiers of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots on the troop train, only 60 made it to roll-call the next morning. The precise number of fatalities is not known because the roll of the regiment was destroyed in the fire that followed the initial crash.
For the disaster was made even worse by a raging fire. To carry troops around the country, old wooden carriages with gas lighting had been brought back into service. Not only were the carriages fragile and highly combustible, they carried reservoirs of oil underneath to feed oil-gas into the lighting system. All this was ignited by the bursting fire pans of the colliding trains and together with the coal and coal dust in the coal trains it made the crash an inferno that burned for days. The noise of ammunition "cooking off" in the remains of the troop train led to stories of officers shooting soldiers trapped in the wreckage to shorten their suffering in the face of the blaze. Whatever the truth of that, it is known that several of those who escaped the fire did so by self-amputating.
Meakin and Tinsley have the ignominious distinction of being the only railwaymen in the UK to be given prison sentences for causing a crash. At their trial, the Lord Justice General's charge to the jury pointed out that:
"...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."
It is a grim irony that the soldiers who died were on their way to embark for Gallipoli. Perhaps the Quintinshill disaster, which accounted for more than 40% of the casualties suffered by the batallion during World War 1, had simply hastened their untimely deaths a little.