The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Don't remember much about it, and can't really find anything on Google. Wasn't part of Largs train station demolished by a runaway train??

Alycidon wrote:

ChrisWoods wrote:Getting back on topic (and away from personal slanging matches), wasn't there an accident at Clarkson (or is that the Newton one?)

Not a railway accident, but a very nasty gas explosion in 1971 that smashed the shops beside the line to rubble, killing 22 & injuring many others in the process

No, I know about that, I just had it in my mind that there was a train crash over that way as well, late eighties early nineties. Where is Netwon anyway, that may well be the one

Newton is on the Glasgow to Motherwell line, between Cambuslang and Uddingston, junction for the Hamilton Circle and the Kirkhill line.

Don't know where I got the Clarkston connection from but having read about the Newton one it looks like that's the one I was thinking of.

lynnski wrote:Don't remember much about it, and can't really find anything on Google. Wasn't part of Largs train station demolished by a runaway train??

Yeah, it went through the buffers. 1994 or 1995 I think.

Simba wrote:

lynnski wrote:Don't remember much about it, and can't really find anything on Google. Wasn't part of Largs train station demolished by a runaway train??

Yeah, it went through the buffers. 1994 or 1995 I think.

Summer 1995 it was.



James H

Re. the Pendolino crash. In all the photos I've seen it shows trailing points which I wouldn't think could account for the deflection that took place. Was there a set of facing points just behind the trailing ones?

MadMac wrote:

MacotheIsles wrote:The Invergowrie crash was due to a communication error - 'Lunan Bay' was confused with 'Letham Grange', or vice versa.

Different incident. Invergowrie was a signal passed at Danger, then the train ran into the back of a failed one. Lunan Bay was several years earlier. Reports for both on "Railways Archive" (see above for link).

Ah - thanks MadMac.

james73 wrote:

Simba wrote:

lynnski wrote:Don't remember much about it, and can't really find anything on Google. Wasn't part of Largs train station demolished by a runaway train??

Yeah, it went through the buffers. 1994 or 1995 I think.

Summer 1995 it was.
James H

A piece from the wikipedia article:-

Originally a modestly sized station with a glazed canopy, the majority of the station was destroyed on 11 July 1995 when the 6.15am Glasgow Central train crashed through the buffers and demolished both parts of the station and various shops on the main street of Largs. The station operated via temporary structures for many years, and a £200,000 makeover (including a new station) was completed in 2005, albeit much simpler than the original station.

MacotheIsles wrote:Re. the Pendolino crash. In all the photos I've seen it shows trailing points which I wouldn't think could account for the deflection that took place. Was there a set of facing points just behind the trailing ones?

Yes there was, most of the emergency crossovers on the WCML have both facing and trailing crossovers.

Thanks Craig.

dave2 wrote:Which plays into Richard Branson's hands. He wants an extra 2 carriages per train (no 10 & 11) to meet a projected increase un demand over the next 5-10 years. The business case for this was looking shaky as RBS subsidiary Angel Trains weren't keen to invest when the Government were threatening to report them (and other rolling stock companies) to the Office of Fair Trading, which could lead to a decrease in the leasing costs of these new carriages, and them not making back their investment. However if Virgin now need to buy not 106 carriages, but 115 plus a new driving carriage, then the business case is strengthened, since without it Virgin will have to run Voyagers on some services.

some info on this here

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2026515,00.html

For those who remember the train going through Largs and the derailment at exhibition centre last year, the train that it happened to 318 254 is still at Shields TMD just now, managed to get a snap of it today when i was down there on an arranged trip.



>>Full SizeHere<<

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/gla ... 852787.stm

Technically not Glasgow I know but local news none the less. Happened this morning just before the flurry of commuter traffic. Anyone driving in the area would have noticed an unusual amount of heavy goods vehicles on the narrow windy roads (dodgy). Thankfully the driver escaped unharmed

My brother, a fireman at Cowcaddens, was telling me this morning that this accident has already been dubbed by loads of his colleagues as the "Instructors Wet Dream".

When quizzed as to why he said that at training school the fire-fighting instructors would make up completely ridiculous scenarios involving all manner of multiple causes and including incredulous complicating factors in order to make the trainees panic and this accident seems to have the lot - derailed train crashing through a bridge, carriages involved, hydrocarbon accelerants in storage tanks, destroyed electricity pylons, trapped persons reported, dangerous fumes in proximity to dwellings ... it's like an episode of Casualty, London's Burning and The A-Team all rolled into one.