The Quintinshill Conspiracy: The Shocking True Story Behind Britain's Worst Rail Disaster

Jack Richards · Adrian Searle

Oct 2013 · Wharncliffe

About this ebook

It was the railway's Titanic. A horrific crash involving five trains in which 230 died and 246 were injured, it remains the worst disaster in the long history of Britain's rail network.The location was the isolated signal box at Quintinshill, on the Anglo-Scottish border near Gretna; the date, 22 May 1915. Amongst the dead and injured were women and children but most of the casualties were Scottish soldiers on their way to fight in the Gallipoli campaign. Territorials setting off for war on a distant battlefield were to die, not in battle, but on home soil victims, it was said, of serious incompetence and a shoddy regard for procedure in the signal box, resulting in two signalmen being sent to prison. Startling new evidence reveals that the failures which led to the disaster were far more complex and wide-reaching than signalling negligence. Using previously undisclosed documents, the authors have been able to access official records from the time and have uncovered ahighly shocking and controversial truth behind what actually happened at Quintinshill and the extraordinary attempts to hide the truth.As featured in Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine, January 2014.

About the author

Prior to pursuing a career teaching music, Jack Richards was employed in the railway industry, working for a period in a train control centre. Maintaining a life-long interest in railway history and close links with the rail industry, he has chaired a rail user group and a community rail partnership and has served as a member of the Rail Passengers Council, on whose behalf he contributed to research and publications.