Passengers returning from their festive breaks boarded a train at Edinburgh Waverley in the afternoon of January 3 1917, with no clue that their journey would turn out to become one of the most devastating rail disasters the country has ever seen.
As the train approached Ratho Station, eight miles west of Edinburgh, at around 4.35pm it collided with another engine and derailed. The Herald told readers the following day of: “Heartbreaking scenes, with a large number of passengers pinned beneath the wreckage.”
READ MORE - Edinburgh TV presenter John Leslie now, new career after falling from public favour
12 people were killed, and 46 more were injured.
The Daily Record reported: “A heavily-laden passenger train and a light pilot engine were involved in a collision.
"By some means, at present unexplained, the light pilot engine was allowed to cross the line on which the passenger train was coming, with the result that the first coach of the oncoming train was practically reduced to matchwood.
Described as a ‘terrific impact’, the event saw the discipline of a number of soldiers come into use. The passengers included a number of army men who were on leave, and immediately began to offer assistance.
Cushions taken from carriages were used to lay the injured on, taken from carriages towards the back of the train - where passengers were largely unscathed and some unaware what had happened. Ronald Murray, who was in the third coach, told the Daily Record: “I just got a jerk and got this knock on my eye.
“The baggage in the carriage next to us came down and hit an old woman on the head, but except for these sorts of things, nobody was much damaged in this part of the train. I was hit with a bag, and like another fellow got a black eye.”
Ronald, along with the several soldiers in his carriage, assisted in carrying the injured. Private Radcliffe of the Royal Scots recalled carrying a bloodied passenger to safety, who exclaimed: “We are not whacked yet.”
Sign up to our Edinburgh Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
Radcliffe told the press at the time that his own escape was a miraculous one. Travelling in the first carriage, he managed to jump from the door before it was knocked off the rails.
He said: “One young woman who was pinned by the legs was as plucky as anything, but I don’t know how she fared in the end as I was called off to assist in the work elsewhere. Everybody was crying for water, and one of the troubles was that we couldn’t get water for some time.”
A train left Edinburgh at around 5pm with doctors and nurses to tend to the injured. A service carrying the deceased left Ratho soon after.
By 9pm that evening, a second train arrived at Waverley - and by this time eight people had been confirmed dead and 40 seriously injured, a number that would continue to grow over the course of the evening.
The ill-fated train left Edinburgh from platform 13, a superstitious unlucky number. After the crash, many passengers felt it wasn’t so unfounded.
A minister and his wife who had been in the disaster returned to Waverley to make their way to Glasgow, with an 8pm train. On discovering this service also left from platform 13, the minister declared: “No, I have had enough of number 13.”
Also making his way back to Glasgow was a man who had taken the advice of the ticket collector onboard, which may have saved his life. Boarding the busy afternoon train at Waverley, the man was advised to head to the back carriages with the first two already crowded.
He told the Daily Record: “I heard no screaming at all, but on getting out I observed that the two front carriages had been thrown over the tender of the engine. I may say this, that the train was not travelling at full speed, otherwise the accident would have been worse.”
