Thread by @cocteautriplets

28th December is the anniversary of the Tay Bridge Disaster (of 1879), but is also the anniversary of the Elliot Junction Disaster of 1906. The former, which saw ~70 deaths often overshadows the latter, which caused 22 deaths and 24 injuries. (Pic via The Courier, © unknown)

Elliot Junction Station was on the mainline between Dundee and Aberdeen, just south of Arbroath, where a short local branch to Carmyllie diverged to the north.

The Station was an "island" between the tracks, with goods sidings on the up and down lines, as well as the junction for the line to Carmyllie, so was relatively complex for an otherwise insignificant place which at the time was little more than a few farms, cottages and a mill.

At 330PM, the North British Railway express, which had left Edinburgh for Aberdeen at 735AM hit the back of the local train from Dundee to Arbroath which was just leaving Elliot Junction station.

The weather had been one of blizzards and heavy snowfall for the preceding two days and there was a blizzard "raging" at the time of the collision. It was remarked to be the worst east coast snow storm for 10 years.

January 1st was the most important public holiday in Scotland at the time, and in advance of it there was a great increase in passenger travel on the railway to get home or to family in advance of the bells. The railway and the trains were therefore unusually busy

The heavy snow brought down much of the telegraph and telephone wires along the line, which were required for the signalling system and safe "block" working of the railway. Thus there were no communications and no signal and safety system in place at the time.

Snow drifts up to 3 feet deep blocked the line in places on the morning of the 28th December when the Edinburgh to Aberdeen Express (some carriages of which had left London and come up over the previous night as a "through" sleeper) departed Waverley station

Beyond Easthaven, the station preceding Elliot Junction and 3 miles to the south, "block" working (where a train gets exclusive signalled use of a section or block of the line) was impossible.

Time interval and "proceed with caution" was instead in place; basically the signallers at each box tried to dispatch trains with a known time interval between them, and they were to proceed slow enough that they could come to a halt within the limit of visibility

The line north of Arbroath was totally blocked by snow, but because of the damages to telephone and telegraph and the fact there were two competing railways AND a joint railway operating between Dundee and Aberdeen, the overall train dispatch situation was confusing.

Trains were being dispatched north without it being clear there was nowhere for them to go. It wasn't clear what trains where were at any given time and to make matters worse, fine snow and freezing temperatures jammed points and signals along the line. In short it was chaotic.

And it was about to get even more chaotic. An early morning goods train out of Aberdeen, proceeding south, broke couplings about a mile beyond Elliot Junction, leaving two separate portions blocking the line, the front continuing on for some distance until this was discovered.

The driver of the train and the Easthaven signalman agreed that this train should now go back to Elliot, on the other line and then push the broken part of the train back to Easthaven into a siding.

There now followed a bit of a farcical situation where the goods train went up and down the line trying to find a set of points which weren't frozen. The train ended up going all the way back to Arbroath to be able to cross onto the line with the abandoned wagons.

On reaching the detached part the driver attempted to push it through a snow drift, causing some wagons to derail. On trying the same from the opposite direction and in reverse to pull them out, he managed to derail his engine and block the "up" (southbound) line entirely

So on top of everything else, half the mainline was now blocked and a recovery operation had to be started to get it clear.

At 313PM, the local train left a packed Arbroath station for Dundee, stopping at the first signal box to get permission to go through the "danger" signal and proceed with caution, with visibility noted to be 50 yards

Because of congestion at Arbroath, the front coaches of the local train were inaccessible form the platforms and the 50 passengers were confined to the rear 4 coaches.

The local train reached Elliot Junction at 319PM and made a scheduled stop. However the Elliot Junction signalman could not see it and did not realise it had arrived as it had not whistled to him in the blizzard.

The local train was therefore held at Elliot Junction longer than it should have been, and there was confusion as to what should happen to it as they were aware it was blocking the line.

It looks like this thread got broken here. It continues here;

https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1475894665618640913?s=20