Quintinshill

On the 22nd May 1915 the worst rail disaster in the UK occurred at Quintinshill near Gretna Green, Scotland. The collision that occurred and the subsequent fire resulted in over 220 killed and 240 injured. The majority of casualties were from 1/7th Battalion Royal Scots, Territorials from Edinburgh, heading to Gallipoli.

Quintinshill near Gretna Green

Quintinshill is on the main West Coast railway line from London Euston to Glasgow. At the location are two passing loops where slower trains can be held in order that express trains can pass. In 1915a signal box was located at Quintinshill overlooking the passing loops.



Quintinshill - Track layout



Quintinshill - Signal Box

On the morning of the 22nd May a troop train containing half of the 1st / 7th (Leigh) Battalion Royal Scots, 498 men, left Larbert Station, Stirlingshire en route to Liverpool to board a troop train. The Battalion were Territorials, mobilised in 1914, and were on their way to join the fighting in Gallipoli.

Caledonian Railway McIntosh 4-4-0 no 121
Locomotive headed the troop train to Liverpool.

The troop train was a high priority and any slower train on it's route would need to let it pass. Despite the additional traffic on the main line generated by the war effort, the London-Glasgow expresses continued to be given priority. On the morning of 22nd May, two priority trains, the troop train from the north, and an express from the south were approaching Quintinshill.

To ensure they were not delayed, a goods train had been routed into the up line passing loop (northbound) whilst an empty coal wagon special has been routed into the down line passing loop (southbound), thus both passing loops were occupied.

At 06:17 a local train proceeding north from Carlisle arrived in Quintinshill which needed to be held there in order to allow the passage of a north bound express train. With both passing loops occupied, the signal man had no choice other than to shunt the train onto the southbound line, hold it there and  allow the express to pass. It would however block the passage of the south bound troop train.



Quintinshill - North bound local train

Quintinshill - Local Train on Southbound mainline

The situation 06:37 22nd May was the northbound mainline was clear to allow the London-Glasgow to pass, the southbound line was blocked, and the troop train would need to be held till the local train could be shunted back onto the line north.

Quintinshill - 22nd May 1915

 

 The signalmen at Quintinshill should have changed over at 06:30. However, a practice had been adopted whereby the incoming signalman, to save a mile and half walk,  would catch the local train from Gretna. When it was held at Quintinshill, he would dismount and proceed to the signal box to take over the shift. To cover the practice, the train register was not filled in, any movements were recorded on a scrap of paper, and the register would be updated with the details by the incoming signal men in his hand writing.

On the morning in question, George Meakin, who had worked the night shift, was relived by James Tinsley who had just arrived on the local train which had been shunted onto the southbound line. As well as the breach of regulations on the handover, the firemen from the trains held were in the signal box which could have been distracting to Tinsley. A further breach of rules had taken place as the firemen from the local train should have checked that a collar had been placed over the signal lever which controlled the entry into the Quintinshill sector, physically stopping the signal at the beginning of the sector being set to clear, thus protecting the train on the southbound line.

 Although having just arrived on the local train, possibly distracted by updating the train register and the firemen in the signal box, Tinsley accepted a signal to receive the troop train into the Quintinshill sector on the south bound line blocked by the stationary local train.

Four minutes later, he accepted a northbound express onto the clear north bound line.



Quintinshill - situation 06:49 22nd May 1915

 At 06:49 22nd May 1915 the troop train containing the 1/7th Royal Scots collided head on with the stationary local train.


Quintinshill Rail Disaster
Sequence of events 22n May 1915
By Emoscopes, Tevildo [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The troop train overturned, mostly onto the neighbouring north-bound mainline track and, a minute later, the Glasgow-bound express ploughed into the wreckage causing it to burst into flame. The troop train carriages were old obsolete wooden stock with gas tanks underneath and this led to a ferocious fire.

Quintinshill Rail Disaster 22nd May 1915

Quintinshill Rail Disaster 22nd May 1915

 It was estimated that  226 people were killed and 246 injured in the accident. The 1/7th (Leigh) Battalion Royal Scots lost 216 all ranks in the disaster. Out of the half battalion of 498 men,  only 64 paraded after the disaster.

Quintinshill Rail Disaster
CO 1/7th Royal Scots musters the 64 unscathed survivors

Qunitinshill Rail Disaster

 

 Centenary of the Quintinshill Rail Disaster  

 

Railway Archives -  Accident at Quintinshill on 22nd May 1915    

 

  

QUINTINSHILL MEMORIAL

Quintinshill Memorial Plaque

Royal Armouries - Machine Guns

Rapid fire weapons which could be characterised by the ability to provide multiple shots were in existence as early as 1580. The ability to achieve automatic loading and high rates of fire came in 1862 with the American Gatling Gun.

The Gatling gun consisted of multiple barrels on a cylinder which was rotated by hand which provided sequential firing and reloading. Although replaced by the machine gun, modern Gatling guns are able to combine automatic firing with multi-barrelled weapons.

 The first automatic weapon which reloaded by the recoil power of the previous round fired was the Maxim gun invented by Sir Hiram Maxim in 1884.

In 1896 the Vickers Company acquired the Maxim Company and improved the design of the Maxim gun to produce the Vickers Machine Gun.

The British Army formally adopted the Vickers gun as its standard machine gun on 26 November 1912.


Vickers Machine Gun Mk III 1913

 In 1911, US Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis invented the Lewis Gun. Lewis had difficulties persuading the US Army to adopt the gun, so he retired and moved to Belgium in 1913. He established the Armes Automatique Lewis company in Liège to facilitate commercial production of the gun. Lewis had been worked closely with the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA), and in 1914 they purchased a licence to manufacture the Lewis machine gun utilising the British .303 round. In 1914, Lewis moved his Belgian factory to England.

The Lewis Gun was approved for service on the 15th October 1915.



Lewis Light Machine Gun Mk 1 1916

The Lewis Gun was adopted as a light machine gun and issued to infantry units. The Vickers machine guns were withdrawn from the infantry units, and grouped together of a newly formed Machine Gun Corps.

Machine Gun Corps

The Long, Long Trail: the British Army in the Great War

The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was created by Royal Warrant on October 14 followed by an Army Order on 22 October 1915. The MGC would eventually consist of infantry Machine Gun Companies, cavalry Machine Gun Squadrons and Motor Machine Gun Batteries.

A depot and training centre was established at Belton Park in Grantham, Lincolnshire. A total of 170,500 officers and men served in the MGC, of which 62,049 were killed, wounded or missing. Seven members of the MGC were awarded the Victoria Cross.

The MGC was disbanded in 1922.

Royal Armouries Leeds - Machine Gun Corps Equipment 

Royal Armouries Leeds - Machine Gun Corps Medal

Royal Armouries - Machine Gun Corps
Trench Art & Chinaware 



Royal Armouries Leeds - Indian Mutiny

Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle

 

The Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle was a muzzle a .577 calibre Maine-type (a French invention allowing rapid loading)  muzzle-loading rifle-musket, used by the British Empire introduced in 1853. It had a range of 1,250 yards (1,140 metres). 

 

The ammunition was self contained in a cartridge which had the powder and bullet together in a paper wrapping.

 

Pattern 1853 Cartridge

To load the rifle soldiers had to bite open the cartridge, pour the gunpowder contained within down the barrel, ram the cartridge (which included the bullet) down the barrel, remove the ram-rod, bring the rifle to the ready, set the sights, add a percussion cap, present the rifle, and fire.



 

Source: http://www.nuttyhistory.com/sepoy-mutiny.html

Pattern 1853 Rifle

 

The Enfield P53 was introduced to Indian troops under British colonization in 1856, and issued to the Sepoys of the British East India Company in 1857. Rumours began to spread that the cartridges were greased with animal fat. The possibility of it being beef offended Hindu's, if it was pork it would offend Muslims. This resulted in the Sepoys in Meerut refusing to perform rifle drills using the cartridge and them being court marshalled.

 

The Sepoys mutinied on the 10th May 1857 triggering the start Indian Rebellion  

 

Indian Rebellion 1857

 







Indian Sepoy Uniform & Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle

 

Royal Armouries Leeds - Men at Arms

Men at Arms

Men at Arms

Battle of Pavia 1525

 

 

Royal Armouries Leeds - Oriental Gallery

 

 

The Samurai were a warrior middle and upper class of Japan in the ancient and middle ages. They followed a set of rules known as Bushido.

Japanese armour was generally constructed from many small iron (tetsu) and or leather (nerigawa) scales (kozane) and or plates (ita-mono), connected to each other by rivets and lace (odoshi) made from leather and or silk, and or chain armour (kusari). These armour plates were usually attached to a cloth or leather backing. Japanese armour was designed to be as lightweight as possible as the samurai had many tasks including riding a horse and archery in addition to swordsmanship. The armour was usually brightly lacquered to protect against the harsh Japanese climate.
Source: Japanese Armour
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Tosei Gusoku
Japanese 18th century

The mounted Samurai is from the 18th century, the armour being based upon developments during the civil wars of the16th century.  The flag attached to the back plate displays his personal device, his kamon.

Turkish Heavy Cavalryman
15th century



Mail plate armour for man and horse became the standard equipment for heavy cavalry under the Ottoman Turks (1370 - 1506). The cavalry were armed with bow, sword, and sometimes lance.



 

Terracotta Warrior

The Terracotta Army or the "Terracotta Warriors and Horses" is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife
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Royal Armouries Leeds - Artillery History

The ballista was developed by the Ancient Greek and Romans.  It was a large crossbow capable of shooting a large bolt. The 14th century example uses a crew to wind back a slider, the claw at the back pulling back the cord, so drawing the bow. The ballista was essentially an anti-personnel weapon, its bolts capable of piercing shields or indeed impaling more than one victim.

14th century Ballista

The mangon was a catapult consisting which worked by the torsion of sinew. A wooden arm was thrust into the skein and twisted to force the arm against a crossbar. The arm would be released, flying back against the cross bar, this launching the projectile.

Mangon

 
The trebuchet came into to use in Western Europe in 12th century. An arm was pulled down, the long end with a sling containing the projectile, the short end a counter weight. It could fling projectiles weighing up to 350 pounds (160 kg) at or into enemy fortifications. When released the counterweight would cause the arm to rotate rapidly, sending the projectile to the target. 

Its use continued into the 15th century, well after the introduction of gunpowder. It was obsolete by the beginning of the 16th century with the development of cannon.



12 century Trebuchet 

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile. 

They were invented in China, the first recorded use being a long barrelled bamboo apparatus in 1132.  The first cannons in Europe were probably used in Iberia in the 11th and 12th centuries. They tended to be large cumbersome weapons used for defence, or in sieges. During the Middle Ages cannon became standardized, and more effective in both the anti-infantry and siege roles. After the Middle Ages most large cannon were abandoned in favour of greater numbers of lighter, more manoeuvrable pieces.

16th century bronze wheeled cannon

Royal Armouries Leeds - Canon

Royal Armouries Leeds

 



Royal Armouries Collection

 

Royal Armouries Collection



Royal Armouries
French 6 pounder 1813

Royal Armouries
Tiger Hunting