6th March 1989

Two commuter trains crash in Glasgow

Two trains crashed just outside Bellgrove station when one of them passed through a signal at which it should have stopped. One passenger and one of the train drivers were killed in the incident, and more than 50 others were injured. It was Britain’s third serious train crash in three months. The official report into the crash declared that the train had passed a signal at danger.

“Desperate” signalman

The Daily Mirror of 7 March, which described the location of the crash as a “cost-cutting bottle-neck of single track”, reported that “a desperate signalman tried to warn one of the drivers by setting off two detonators. But he was seconds too late. The 12.20 Milngavie to Springburn, which was on the wrong track, smashed into the second train.”

Two days earlier, five passengers had died in a crash at Purley, which itself came a little less than three months after a crash at Clapham Junction killed 35 and injured almost 500.