Forty five years since the Buttevant rail crash

On this day, Saturday, August 1, 1980 18 people and over 180 passengers were injured at Buttevant, Co Cork. They were travelling on the 10.00 train from Dublin Heuston to Kent Station Cork.

Due to engineering work taking place at Buttevant station the points had been disconnected from the signal on the main down line.

The train, pulled by 075 GM locomotive, was made up of old timber-framed coaches.

The locomotive driver, Berti Walsh, did everything according to the rule book and at the subsequent State Inquiry gave a great account of himself.

At the time of the accident the railway was in a poor and dangerous state of repair; out-of-date signalling systems, old dilapidated rolling stock and successive governments with little or no interest in the railway.