I have previously described in Backtrack’s pages how railwaymen who have been involved in incidents have found themselves, as a result of their actions or inaction, on trial in court. In many of these cases the jury found that actions, or lack of them, by the railway company management and/or board of directors were to blame and acquitted the men so arraigned. Other accidents have been caused by railwaymen ignoring the rules and regulations and sometimes these have been exacerbated by other employees being less than diligent in the performance of their duties. Others yet again have been caused by a combination of all three circumstances. The tale you are about to read is one such occasion where the civil authorities chose to prosecute a driver yet did nothing in the case of a signalman who, it turned out, was equally guilty in the eyes of the Board of Trade (BoT) Inspector. Some of the information has been culled from The Scotsman, Daily News, Dundee Courier, Dundee Advertiser and Aberdeen Journal newspapers while the official BoT report has also fleshed out much of the detail of what actually took place.
A double-headed late-running overnight express was wrecked on the morning of 3rd January 1898 to the south of Dunbar station, one passenger losing his life and many others being injured. Dunbar lies about twenty miles to the east of Edinburgh on the North British Railway’s (NBR) main line from Berwick upon Tweed and the South, the railway running roughly east to west at this point. The train involved was the 11.30pm from King’s Cross to Edinburgh and Aberdeen and had arrived at Berwick about 25 minutes behind time. The North Eastern Railway engine was exchanged for two NBR locomotives, 4-4-0s Nos.642 and 492 Newcastleton, which were to take the train to Edinburgh. By a cruel coincidence No.642 had been the engine involved in the Kinghorn collision on 10th December 1891. The train had reversed in Newcastle station, the King Edward Bridge not, of course, being built by this time. It consisted of two vans, three saloons, four composites and three third class carriages and left Berwick only six minutes down.
As the passenger train was approaching Dunbar a goods train from North Leith was being shunted from the up to the down line with the intention of it being recessed in the South sidings and during this process some wagons of coal were derailed leaving the whole train straddling the up and down tracks. Incredibly this was being allowed to take place right in the face of the oncoming express in the hope that this would come to a halt before the shunt site. The goods crew were desperately trying to rerail them when the leading engine of the express ran into the third wagon. The sound of the impact was likened to that of firing an artillery piece.
