Thread by @cocteautriplets

The engine was therefore running with no weather protection for the crew, into a blizzard, with a blockage on the line ahead. And to make things worse, the driver had whiled away the delay in Arbroath by warming himself in the station bar.

So although the driver, Gourlay, had been told to proceed with caution and to stop at Elliot Junction station, he couldn't really see what he was doing, the blockage was *at* the station and by taking a drink had tarnished his reputation in the subsequent inquiry.

Gourlay proceeded too fast in the circumstances and passed semaphore signals which with the weight of snow on them had dropped from the danger to the clear position - but which he should still have treated as being at danger and passed with all caution.

It was estimated his train was making 30mph at Elliot Junction (he put it at more like 15mph) when it suddenly appeared out of the blizzard, in reverse, and straight into the back of the local train with all its passengers in the rear carriages

In the calamity, 21 of the 50 occupants of the local train lost their lives, 6 of them being off-duty railway servants heading home. Gourlay's fireman would also die after spending many hours pinned underneath his engine. 8 passengers had serious injuries.

The three rear carriages and the brake van of the local train, of wooden construction, were totally obliterated, and all the deaths beyond the fireman occurred in these carriages.

The subsequent enquiry made driver Gourlay of the express its scapegoat. He had taken a drink and was not driving with sufficient caution it found. This was out of character for him, a reliable and sober railwayman of 46 years with a clean reputation.

Gourlay was tried at the High Court in Edinburgh and found guilty of culpable homicide. He was given a lenient sentence of 5 months in the notorious Calton Gaol as a result of his good character and the contributing factors of the breakdown in railway control in the storm

There was much public sympathy for Gourlay. The high court dismissed that he was intoxicated, and a 98,000 signature public petition helped in reducing his sentence to 3 months, where 2,000 wellwishers awaited his release.

Gourlay had been ordered by a superior to drive a train in reverse, into a blizzard, with near zero visibility, with no working system of communication or signalling or train control, and the public seemed aware of this. The railway did too as it kept him in service afterwards.

One final fatality was Alexander William Black WS, a solicitor, Liberal Party MP for Banffshire and a resident of Edinburgh. He succumbed to his injuries the day after the disaster and was buried in the Dean Cemetery. His death precipitated a by-election which the Liberals won.