Armagh Railway Disaster

From the Arthur Trevena collection of photographs. Scene of the Armagh railway disaster, 12 June 1889. Crowds surround the overturned locomotive and smashed railway carriages on an embankment to the east of Armagh station.

The accident involved a Great Northern Railway of Ireland train carrying a Methodist Sunday school outing to the seaside resort of Warrenpoint.

The train was severely overloaded, carrying 1200 passengers in 13 carriages hauled by just a single engine.

It was unable to ascend the steep gradient near Armagh, so the crew decided to divide the train and take the first four carriages into Hamiltons Bawn station. However, the uncoupled coaches had insufficient braking power to hold them and they began to move backwards down the slope. The crew tried unsuccessfully to stop the coaches but they continued down the hill crashing into an oncoming train heading for Newry. The coaches were smashed to pieces killing 80 people and injuring about 260 more. Many of the dead and injured were children.

The law was changed following the accident. Two months later all trains had to be fitted with continuous automatic brakes, while trains ran separated by the block signalling system.