Old Photograph Railway Disaster Kirtlebridge Scotland

Old photograph of the railway disaster by Kirtlebridge village located five miles North East of Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The Kirtlebridge railway crash occurred at the former railway station outside this village on the 2nd of October 1872, and resulted in 12 deaths. An express passenger train ran into a goods train that was shunting; 11 people lost their lives immediately, and one further person succumbed later. The cause was a failure to communicate between the station master in charge of the shunting operation, and the signalman. Kirtlebridge station was nearly 17 miles north of Carlisle, England, on the Caledonian Railway main line to Glasgow and Edinburgh. North of the passenger platforms there was a trailing, in the northbound direction, junction from the Solway Junction Railway, and a signalbox controlled the junction; the points there were interlocked with the signals.



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