Rail tragedy highlighted small chance of survival

Rail safety was uppermost in the minds of many following the horrific Quintinshill Rail Disaster.

In a letter to the Observer of June 5, 1915, a correspondent questioned whether railway companies were doing “all that we could reasonably expect of them to lessen the loss of life and dreadful suffering caused by such accidents?”

The answer, said WL Pullar, of Uplands, Bridge of Allan, was ‘no’.

The accident happened when a troop train carrying officers and men of the Royal Scots hit a stationary civilian passenger train on May 22, 1915.

A minute later an express train ploughed into the wreckage. A total of 200 died and a similar number were injured in the crash and inferno that followed.

The correspondent said the corridor that ran along train carriages at that time was in the event of an accident or fire “a varitable death trap”.

The writer points out that on ordinary German express trains ( die Zuge) the corridors were considerably wider than those in Britain.

And at each end of the corridor “there is a very efficient hand-fired extinguisher, which is regularly overhauled and which has clear and simple instructions in three languages attached to it”.

There was also in each corridor a glass case containing an axe, saw and length of rope.

The writer said that one of the most “extraordinary” features of the British corridor train was the immovable brass bars across the windows.

On German trains there was either no brass bar or one that could be removed. Windows were either hinged or could raised and lowered by a strap.

Hinged double windows carried a notice in German, English and French saying ‘only open in case of danger’.

They were never otherwise opened, said the writer, who went on to add: “A railway smash, of course, is a railway smash all the world over but a comparison between the precautions taken in the German and British trains shows, I think conclusively that in Germany the unfortunate passengers have at least a sporting chance, whereas with us they have none.

“It is fervently to be hoped that it will not require another disaster of this nature to induce all our railway companies to introduce reforms for the safety of their passengers, which are very much overdue.”