Rail disaster remembered

A survivor of the Invergowrie rail disaster said it should never be forgotten as it may help prevent future crashes. Dr Ken leDez said he is amazed lessons have still not been learned from the tragedy, 35 years on.

A SURVIVOR of the Invergowrie rail disaster has said the tragedy should never be forgotten as it may help to prevent future crashes.

Speaking yesterday — the 35th anniversary of the collision — Dr Ken leDez said he is “amazed” that lessons from the accident, which claimed five lives when two trains collided outside Dundee, have still not been learnt.

The tragedy occurred on a routine Monday morning service, when the 8.44am Glasgow to Dundee train broke down, shortly after leaving Invergowrie, at 11am.

Within minutes of drawing to a halt, an Aberdeen-bound express train slammed into its rear.

The impact caused the engine of the Dundee-bound train to burst into flames and two carriages were thrown 30ft into the mud of Invergowrie Bay. Others slid to a halt on the slope down towards the sand.

Two passengers travelling in the rear carriage of the stationary train — Dr James Preston, from Birmingham, and Pole Kazimierz Jedrezejzjk — were killed instantly, as were the crew of the express train, driver Robert Duncan and his assistant William Hume.

A fifth casualty, Mrs May Morrison, from Crieff, died later in hospital from her injuries.

Dr leDez, who was travelling in one of the carriages that wound up on the sand at Invergowrie Bay, was hailed as a hero for staying on the train to help injured passengers — even climbing out of one window and back in through another to reach a trapped woman with severe leg injuries.

Now an associate professor of Anaesthesiology and Hyperbaric Medicine at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, he said remembering events like the crash will force rail companies to invest in technologies to prevent similar accidents. “I will never forget that day,” he said. “There have been multiple crashes for similar reasons since and it amazes me that these things still happen. “I hope that remembering these tragedies again will inspire adoption of technologies to prevent these things from happening.”

The death toll could have been even higher, as passengers in the two rear carriages would almost certainly have drowned if the tide had been i n. Some newspapers described it as a “miracle” that more people had not been killed.

Dozens of police, firefighters and paramedics fought through weeds and foliage to reach the wreckage.

They were then confronted with a scene of almost unimaginable horror: the two carriages that had landed on the wet sand of Invergowrie Bay were beginning to sink and passengers were frantically trying to escape.

A memorial to victims of the disaster was unveiled at Dundee railway station by union Aslef, to mark the 30th anniversary of the accident.

Blame for the crash was eventually attributed to Robert Duncan after a fatal accident inquiry ruled he had misread an imperfect signal.

However, many felt it was unfair to blame Mr Duncan when the signal had been faulty for weeks.

Dr Ken leDez