GREAT ARMAGH TRAIN DISASTER 1889

The introduction of the railways had made annual Sunday School outings to the seaside affordable and eagerly anticipated events. Wednesday morning the 12th June 1889 saw one such outing out of the hundreds that would take place that summer looked forward to by teachers, parents, friends and children of the Methodist Sunday School of Armagh. As the band of the Royal Irish Fusiliers led the procession from the Sunday School no one could have envisaged that a combination of lack of experience of the expected terrain, an engine lacking in sufficient power and an overloading of coaches would lead to such a catastrophic event.

The Sunday School committee had envisaged the sale of approximately 800 tickets and from this estimate the GN Authorities at Dundalk were to provide a suitable engine, rolling stock and crew from their spare pool. Neither the appointed driver, Thomas McGrath, nor the staff at Dundalk were very familiar with the extent of the incline out of Armagh to Dobbin's Bridge at the summit, nor that the appointed engine number 86 would be unlikely to have the power, when pulling 13 full coaches, to make it to the top.

On the morning of the outing, John Foster, the station master at Armagh was told that instead of the previously notified 800 passengers there would now be more in the region of 940 passengers, so proceeded to prepare the extra tickets. Two more coaches were now added and ideally there should have been one or two more, but McGrath deciding that the load was already a full one declined to add any more.

Finally when the coaches were fully crammed the train finally set off twenty minutes late at 10.20 am. For a time all went well, McGrath kept the engine in full forward gear, the heat of the day had dried the slight shower of rain which could have made for greasy rails and the engine was firing at full throttle. But, when the train was within 700-800 yards from the summit at a point called Derry's Crossing the speed began to drop and finally the labouring engine came to a complete halt just 200 yards from the summit at Dobbin's Bridge at a place called Killuney Townland. The engine had probably already over achieved its capacity, but this was so agonisingly close.

It was at his point that McGrath made his fateful mistake. Instead of choosing the more sensible course of waiting for the lightly loaded scheduled 10.35 passenger train from Armagh to assist, he decided that his only course of action was to divide the train and take the front portion forward to the next siding and then to come back for the rest of the train. They managed to uncouple the train with difficulty due to the strain imposed by the incline. To prevent the train from rolling back down the incline the guard in the rear brake van was told to apply his brake, which incidentally he had already had the foresight to do, and was also told to place stones under the wheels of the van.