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 A buffer stop, bumper, bumping post, bumper block or stopblock (US), is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track. The design of the buffer stop is dependent, in part, on the kind of couplings ...

, sustaining severe damage. Sixteen people were killed, 13 instantaneously and 3 at a later time due to injuries received. 64 people were injured, of which 17 required hospital treatment. This was the worst buffer stop collision on British main line railways, though exceeded by the

Moorgate Moorgate was one of the City of London's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, b ...

tragedy on the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

. 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 . The severity of the St Enoch accident was because the collision speed was as high as . An inexperienced driver on a special train from

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was signalled into a platform that he did not realise was much shorter than the others, because it terminated short of the overall roof and well short of the main concourse. The station has been recently rebuilt and the newly added platform was on a sharp curve. The driver approached at too high a speed and braked too late. The solid masonry platform behind the buffer stops presented an immovable barrier and two coaches were completely telescoped.

Notes

{{Railway accidents in the United Kingdom, 1900–1999, state=collapsed Train collisions in Scotland Railway accidents in 1903 1903 in Scotland Transport in Glasgow Disasters in Glasgow 1900s in Glasgow Accidents and incidents involving Glasgow and South Western Railway 1903 disasters in the United Kingdom July 1903 events Rail accidents caused by a driver's error