The Glasgow St Enoch rail accident occurred on 27 July 1903. A train arriving at the St Enoch terminal station failed to stop in time and collided heavily with the buffer stop, sustaining severe damage. Sixteen people were killed and 27 injured. This was the worst buffer stop collision on British main line railways, though exceeded by the Moorgate tragedy on the London Underground.
Collisions with buffer stops have frequently occurred over the years, the most recent fatal one in the UK being the London Cannon Street station rail crash in 1991. However, normally they occur at very low speed, less than 5 mph (8 km/h). The severity of the St Enoch accident was because the collision speed was as high as 15-20 mph (24-32 km/h). An inexperienced driver on a special train from Ardrossan was signalled into a platform that he did not realise was much shorter than the others, terminating short of the overall roof and well short of the main concourse. He therefore braked much too late. The solid masonry platform behind the buffer stops presented an immovable barrier and two coaches were completely telescoped.
Famous quotes containing the words glasgow, enoch, rail and/or accident:
“... so long as the serpent continues to crawl on the ground, the primary influence of woman will be indirect ...”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.... As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.””
—J. Enoch Powell (b. 1912)
“For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
“Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
The shot of accident nor dart of chance
Could neither graze nor pierce?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)