On this day, August 1, 1980
Eighteen people were killed and 70 injured.
The locomotive pulling the timber framed coaches was built by General Motors in Canada. It was numbered 075 (picture) and still in service with Irish Rail, working as a goods/work loco.
The crash happened as the result of facing points not linked to a signal. The signal had been disconnected from the points as part of works taking place.
As result of that crash and the later disaster at Cherryville Junction in Co Kildare the Irish Government and CIE began a long overdue modernisation of the railway.
The locomotive driver of the ill-stricken train was Mr Bertie Walsh, who behaved in an exemplary way and did everything according to the rulebook. At the subsequent railway investigation he gave an excellent account of the crash that day and why it had happened.
In the days after the crash many media outlets tried to point the blame at junior staff working at the station. The rail report that followed showed clearly nothing of the sort was true. It was far more complex than that and all junior staff were exonerated.
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