In the early hours of Sunday, July 1, 1906, the citizens of Salisbury woke to the sound of screeching metal and the screams of the injured and dying as the London and South Western Railways boat train from Plymouth to Waterloo ploughed into the early morning milk train at the Fisherton Bridge end of the station.
It was the worst rail disaster in the city's history and left 28 people dead and many more injured.
The noise of the crash reverberated across the city.
Doctors were fetched and people flocked to help the rescue operation.
The ladies waiting room on platform four became a morgue (and remained so for a week), other waiting rooms were turned into first aid rooms where medics assessed the injured and Salisbury Infirmary coped as casualties were helped from the wreckage and given into its care.
"As day dawned on Sunday," noted the Salisbury Times, "Salisbury was the scene of an unparalleled catastrophe
The cause of the crash remains something of an enigma the enquiry into it was inconclusive and theories advanced over the years are no more than that theories.
What is beyond dispute is that 43 passengers, mostly Americans, disembarked from the transatlantic liner SS New York and boarded the ocean express at Plymouth.
Also aboard was the driver William Robins and fireman Arthur Gadd, a guard, two waiters and a ticket collector.
It was common practice for the more affluent transatlantic passengers to take the boat train from Plymouth the first point of landfall in this country to London, thus gaining a day over those who sailed on to Southampton and Portsmouth and made the journey from there.
Great Western also ran trains from Plymouth carrying transatlantic mail and it was not uncommon for the trains to race along two different routes with the passengers betting on the outcome.
However, there was no evidence that this was the case in this instance, but the boat train sped through Salisbury station at around 2am, traveling at such a speed that it left the rails immediately afterwards on the sharp curve at the eastern end of the platforms and careered along on its side for about 100 yards, catching the rear carriages of the London to Yeovil milk train.
Immediately afterwards, it smashed into a goods train standing at the station.
Robins and Gadd died instantly and 24 passenger lives were lost from the boat train.
The milk train's guard and the fireman aboard the goods train were also killed. |
