Wormit Station Accident 1955: Memories as told to Wendy Irons by Margaret Stevenson

The accident happened on 28th May 1955 at 7 o’clock in the evening.  I was a member of Wormit Lawn Tennis Club and was on the courts playing an American Tournament against Newport Tennis Club. I remember Elizabeth Davidson was there. The club was very busy in those days and the American Tournaments were very popular. We all made food and shared it. It was the weekend, nearly summer, and the evenings were light, so we could play on.

There was a dreadful, deafening scraping noise which I can remember to this day. We all stopped playing tennis and ran up to the station. As we approached we saw huge clouds of smoke and steam – apparently these could be seen from Dundee. The train had come from Tayport and was going at a terrific speed, came off the rails and scraped along the sides of the tunnel. The tunnel was keeping it upright. As it came out of the tunnel it went in all directions because it was off the rails. It overturned onto the Dundee bound platform. Residents of Riverside Road were aware of the train going too fast as it passed by their houses, knew something was wrong and came along to help.

My father, Benjamin Morris Henderson, was the Station Master at Wormit. I was really worried about him as the train had come through the tunnel and the first three carriages had toppled onto the platform. I ran down the station path, but then I saw that he was there on the platform. Relieved, I went back to the train to help. 

The Signalman crossed the railway line from his signal box to see if my father was aware of the accident, which of course he was. Father then got Will Mackay, a local resident who lived at the top of Bay Road on Riverside Road, and who was a plumber – his wife Tiz was a well known local much involved in the tennis club. Mr Mackay and my father crawled into the engine which was up on its end. They tried to switch off the steam or at least reduce it.

Wormit folk came from all over to help. Lots of lads on their bikes. I can remember Ian Gray telling me years later that he was one of them. My future husband Ron climbed on top of the first carriage to get people out. We were just friends at that time and he lived in Balgillo in Bay Road.

Some of the other carriages were also up on end, and we all tried to get the passengers out as quickly as we could. The passengers were from a Dundee church and had been on a Sunday school picnic trip to Tayport. The train crew had spent the afternoon there awaiting the return journey.

The local doctors, including Dr Archibald Taylor from Newport and Dr Ross the Wormit doctor who stayed on Riverside Road, worked in the car park treating the injured. The car park was the area where Bridgehead Place is now. I was told later that Elizabeth Davidson’s sister Alice also helped. She was a nurse and was due to have gone to Dundee for duty on the train after the derailed one. She contacted the hospital and they told her to stay and help.

Ambulances came and went on the ferries taking those passengers who needed hospital treatment to Dundee. We later heard that 3 people had been killed and 41 injured. 

My mother and I served refreshments to the workers and those remaining who’d been on the train. The moving of the rubble continued until late evening, and we served tea and refreshments to people right through the night. At that time we stayed in the station house on Bay Road, just before the lane to the bowling club, so it was easy to nip down the road for anything we needed and to have a short break before going back. We were later very pleased to get a cheque from the British Transport Commission for five guineas in recognition of our efforts – a lot of money in those days!

I don’t remember anything else about that incident, but my father as Station Master witnessed so many crashes. One I particularly remember happened on 21 April 1958. It was about quarter past nine in the morning. A three ton furniture van came along the Wormit main road towards Newport, past the Spar, which was then two shops owned by Ralph Millar and Cyril Goldberg, mounted the pavement and came through the fence. It went down the banking and landed in front of the tunnel, just as the Tayport train was coming. It hit the fifth coach on the train. – there were six coaches. There were twenty five people on board, all in the first three carriages. The Mate managed to get the driver out. Thankfully, no-one was killed.

The only other thing I particularly remember was my brother in law Ronald Kelt telling me about a particular porter on the trains, who used to shout “Aw you in there fur here, get out!”

Margaret’s photographs of the accident can be viewed on our website.