The Quintinshill Firestorm

Monday May 11 2015

Jackie Macadam reports on the role of churches in commemorating the centenary of a wartime rail tragedy that left 216 people dead.

It was around 3.45am on May 22 1915 when the train pulled out of the dimly lit station at Larbert.

Its passengers, 498 soldiers drawn from all ranks of the 1st/7th (Leith) Battalion The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), were on their way to Liverpool and, from there, to Galipolli.

At 6.49am the train ploughed head on into a local passenger train which had been ‘parked’ facing north, on the south bound main line at Quintinshill, just north of Gretna.

The troop train overturned, spilling its carriages and human cargo all over the tracks, but primarily onto the neighbouring northbound line. Less than a minute later, a Glasgow-bound express slammed into the overturned train.

The carriages on the troop train were elderly, wooden and lit by means of gas, carried in huge tanks underneath each carriage. It was like a bomb exploding.

Of the half battalion on the train, only 62 survived unscathed. Of the 216 who died in the disaster, or soon afterwards because of their injuries, only 83 were identified, so appalling was the firestorm.

Back in Leith it seemed that no family was untouched by the disaster, and the Battalion chaplains, from South Leith Parish Church and Lady Glenorchy’s United Free Church, were inundated with distraught families as the news spread.

On Sunday May 23, most of the bodies were brought back to Leith, and a ceremonial burial was arranged.

On Monday May 24, 101 of the 107 coffins were taken in procession through the streets to be interred in a mass grave at Rosebank Cemetery, Pilrig in Edinburgh.

Onlookers reported that 3,150 soldiers lined the streets to the cemetery and thousands of citizens stood shoulder to shoulder on the pavement. No shops opened. Curtains were drawn and the traffic was completely stopped.

This month, The Royal Scots and locals in the Quintinshill/Gretna/Carlisle area are holding their own special events to remember the tragedy and, as 100 years ago, the Battalion churches will be involved.

The Rev C Bryan Haston is minister at Gretna Old, Gretna St Andrew's, Half Morton and Kirkpatrick Fleming Parish Churches. He says: “There is a large group of people from here and the Carlisle area involved in organising the events

“On May 22 there will be a parade, pipe band, military band leading to a service at the Memorial followed by the laying of wreaths.

“Then, in the Village Hall in Gretna Green, where many of the bodies were laid out, there will be a commemorative poem.

“In Gretna Old Parish Church there will be the unveiling of a Roll of Honour of all those who died (alongside all the other memorials) with the schoolchildren and congregation taking part.

“After that a tree will be planted on the green at Gretna near the War Memorial with the younger schoolchildren from Gretna and Kirkpatrick Fleming primary schools taking part.

“There will also be a short service at Quintinshill itself, with a wreath laying done by the son of one of the survivors.    

“The whole weekend, the Hall and Gretna Old Parish Church will have ‘then and now’ displays.

“On Sunday May 24, there will be a united service in Gretna Old at 11am when we will remember the disaster in particular.”

The Royal Scots are also commemorating the tragedy with events of their own, including wreath laying at Larbert Station, from where the train departed; a parade and a commemoration service in Edinburgh centred on the old Dalmeny Street Drill Hall and Rosebank cemetery.

The Rev Iain May, minister at South Leith Parish Church, which was the Battalion’s home church, says: “The Quintinshill train crash is actually in the Scottish Government’s official Scottish Commemorations Programme this year and we are certainly involved heavily in the big commemoration event at Rosebank cemetery.

“On the Sunday we are having a service of remembrance at South Leith Church with representatives from The Royal Scots and descendants of the people who died, and who survived, present.”