Passengers travelling through Haymarket Station on the evening of July 28, 1924, would have expected a dull commute home from the city.
What happened was a devastating crash, which killed five passengers and injured a further 54 people. Two packed services smashed into each other, leading to the arrest of one engine driver.
One train, approaching from Waverley, crashed into the rear of a stationary suburban train. Two carriages of the latter were telescoped and completely wrecked.
The stationary train, the 6.41 Inner Circle train, was sitting at the south platform when it was hit. According to a report from the Ministry of Transport, the Waverley born train was travelling at no more than ten miles an hour.
Despite the low speed, the stationary train was mounted by the other and several of its compartments crushed together. The victims were mainly members of an English organised touring party, who had spent the day at St Andrews and were returning to their hotel in Edinburgh.
At Haymarket they had changed trains - heading to Newington, the nearest station to the hostel they were housed in. It was here that the disaster would take place, with the smashing of glass and screams from the passengers reportedly heard throughout the neighbourhood.
Within a few minutes of the crash, dozens of doctors were on the scene along with a number of nurses from the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute. It was quarter past eight before the last injured people were removed from the vehicle.
The Lancashire Evening Post told readers the following day: “Saws, crowbars, levers, ropes, and sledgehammers were brought into action by the police, who were assisted by a large body of civilians, and the work of smashing down the woodwork and tearing away the sides of coaches went on in a fever of excitement.
“One man seen moving underneath a seat was in a terrible plight, and although he was spoken to and handed brandy it was impossible to give him any more immediate help.”
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The slow process of retrieving the injured was intricate work, with every movement of the wreckage bringing groans and screams from those pinned underneath. After the wreckage was cleared, work began on an inquiry into the disaster.
Colonel Pringle, the Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, published his report on the accident in February 1925. He said that despite evidence, the driver of the Waverley born train was at fault.
He said: “After very full consideration of all the circumstances, and impressed as I was at the inquiry by the manner in which Driver Swan gave his evidence, I have been forced to the conclusion that he was mistaken.
“The evidence established the fact that the down north starting signal was in the ‘off’ position for an empty carriage train whilst the Port Edgar train was approaching the starting signal on the down south line. Both signal posts are carried on a bridge over the northern pair of lines.
“I can only conclude that he misread the signals on this occasion.”
The driver of the Port Edgar train, James Steel Swan, was charged with culpable homicide - on the grounds that he ran through signals and caused the collision.
The women killed in the 1924 Haymarket accident were: FM Umpleby, Janet Love, Ellen Sarah Fountain, and Miss Sprately. A further unnamed victim died in hospital in the following days.
