35 PEOPLE KILLED

Grey River Argus, 13 December 1937, Page 5

35 PEOPLE KILLED

RAILWAY DISASTER To Scottish Express [Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] LONDON, December 10. Thirty-four persons were killed and over forty were injured, when the Edinburgh-Glasgow express, speeding at sixty miles an hour through a raging blizzard, crashed into a stationary Dundee-Glasgow train at Castlecary, a village thirteen miles from Glasgow. Two carriages were thrown right over the engine and one landed on top of it. The others were telescoped and were smashed to matchwood. This is the worst smash since the troop trains were wrecked at Gretna Green in 1915, resulting in 277 being killed and 250 injured.

Twenty-six bodies have been recovered and eight are believed to be still in the wreckage. The fireman was killed, but the driver had a remarkable escape, being hurled from the cabin. After recovering from the shock, he risked scalds and climbed through the wreckage to cut off the steam. Hissing jets of steam from the upturned locomotive, combined with the blizzard, added to the frightfulness of the accident. Jets of steam penetrated the wreckage and passengers could be heard screaming from the torture of the hot steam. Rescuers, struggling in the deep snow and inky darkness, were forced to build bonfires from the wreckage of the coaches before they could find the dead ana injured, who were dragged through the blinding snowstorm and laid out in a goods shed.

An uninjured passenger said that at first it was impossible to penetrate the twisted wreckage owing to the snow, steam and darkness. Cries from the women and children were unanswered until half an hour after the crash, when piles of broken coachwood were set on fire. Mr. Gordon Dickson, of Edinburgh, told a most amazing story.

“I was dozing in a compartment, in which there were four others, and .1 knew nothing until I awoke, lying on the snow several yards from the wrecked carriage,” he said. “I had been hurled through the window uninjured. My four companions were all killed. I helped in the rescue work, and the first person I dragged out was an elderly woman, who was buried in the wreckage. I was staggered to find that it was my mother, who was travelling on the train unknown to me. She was miraculously uninjured.” Slowly parties of rescuers. with their hands almost frozen, dragged out the dead and injured as the bonfires began to shed a lurid glare over the bodies huddled alongside the tracks, with snow covering them in a white pall. Ambulances dashed from Glasgow and Falkirk, and even Edinburgh, skidding crazily over the ice-covered roads. Doctors and nurses from all nearby hospitals stood by to treat the injured, who, covered with blood and snow, were lifted into ambulances by the villagers and uninjured passengers. The condition of several of the injured is very grave. Death Roll 35 A GHASTLY SCENE. (Received December 12, 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 11. In the Glasgow rail smash, it is officially stated, there were thirty-five killed. The last body was extricated at 11 p.m. i An appeal has been issued for help to identify two men and three women. William Kinnear, the fireman on the Edinburgh train, Who has thought to have been killed, has now been found to be alive. He had a remarkable escape. He suffered minor injuries and severe shock. The bodies of three men and one woman were recovered from a coach that was piled on the engine. The break of dawn revealed a harrowing spectacle. . One hundred men were still working on the wreck with numbed fingers, a ghastly hush being broken only by the clank of a crane tearing away masses of twisted steel. The snow had been turned into slush, and the rescuers worked in it ankle deep. Many of them had come from the scene of a minor accident at Haddington, fifty miles away, and had not slept since Thursday night. Cameron Highlanders going home for Christmas leave, were aboard the express. Some of them were injured. Others effected gallant rescues. Despite the cold, they took off their puttees and used them as bandages. Miners, who were passing, going to work, used their safety lamps. Alongside some of the bodies there were found Christmas toys, which the victims were taking to Glasgow. Several bodies were unrecognisable. It is feared that if any are alive in the wreckage they will perish from the cold. The smash was due to a signal error. The Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways will undertake preliminary investigations, preparatory to the holding of an official inquiry, the date for which has not yet been fixed. Their Majesties sent a message of sympathy to the Castlegary suffeiers, and bereaved persons. All the dead have now been identified.