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Thank you to
Richard Keltie for sending me details of an accident involving his
grandfather and the same loco as in the photo above.
Richard wrote:
1937
"The accident
happened while the loco was being driven by my grandfather, Fred
Butler.
On Friday, 10 December 1937, he was
driving the Reid class ‘C16’ locomotive L.N.E.R 9449, pulling the
market train with about 20 passengers from Edinburgh and scheduled
to arrive at Haddington at 11.19am.
On approaching the terminus, he
applied the brakes, but due to ice on the rails, they failed to
operate. Fred put the engine into reverse and the guard at the
rear of the train also applied the brakes, but the train carried
on and ploughed through the buffers, crossed a roadway, smashed
through a wooden gate and hoarding before finally coming to a halt
on an embankment.
Three
passengers suffered minor injuries and my grandfather was treated
for shock. Breakdown workers who
attended the incident were called away to assist at the scene of a
far worse rail accident which occurred that same day,
later in the afternoon – the Castlecary disaster in which 2 trains
collided, killing 35 people and injuring 179."
Richard Keltie, Glasgow,
Scotland: January
19, 2008 |
