On this day in 1928

“One killed: 50 injured,” ran the headline in the Western Daily Press of 13 October 1928. That death count was set to rise – to three, with 55 injured – following the collision of two trains at Glasgow Queen Street station the previous day. “The dead man is believed to have been proceeding on his honeymoon, and one of the injured persons in the Royal Infirmary is reported to be his bride,” said the paper.

The following day’s edition of The People noted that the 25-year-old bridegroom, Mr Donaldson Gray, “was killed within three hours of his marriage and his bride had had a leg amputated.”

Violent impact

The accident had happened in a tunnel leading into the station, when the express train to Edinburgh stopped and, unable to hold its position on the steeply inclined track, rolled backwards. Since it had entered the tunnel, though, a second train, for Alloa, had been allowed to enter the tunnel so it could reposition itself for a vacant platform. This put it right in the path of the approaching Edinburgh express.

“The impact was so violent that the last three carriages of the Edinburgh train telescoped,” reported the Birmingham Daily Gazette on 13 October. “The engine of the Alloa train was derailed in the collision. The end of the rear carriage of the Edinburgh train was smashed to matchwood, but apparently not a single person had been seated there. The next carriage was crushed like pulp, and it was extraordinary that none of its passengers was killed.”

 

...and on this day in 1983

Scottish conservationist John Muir was known in America as the Father of the National Parks. Born in Dunbar, he moved to the United States with his family at the age of 11 and lived the rest of his life there and in Canada, eventually dying in Los Angeles at the age of 76. However, he never forgot his Scottish roots.

The trust founded in his name in 1983 works to “conserve and protect wild places with their indigenous animals, plants and soils for the benefit of present and future generations”, according to its listing with the Scottish Charity Regulator.

It is the owner of Ben Nevis and the surrounding estate of 1,761 hectares, as well as John Muir’s birthplace in Dunbar, and cares for more than 60,000 acres of wild land.