Disaster at Fordell 1896

Something a little different - a piece of evicative railway history I wrote a few years ago.

Monday, 13th April 1896 would have begun for Thomas Drysdale and William George much like any other working day. They started their day’s work at the locomotive shed of the Fordell Colliery, built onto a square of wagon workshops and cottages in Fordell village in West Fife. Their locomotive, Alice, was an 0-4-0 saddle tank, built sixteen years previously by Messrs. Grant, Ritchie and Co. of Kilmarnock. Whether they had to prepare the locomotive’s fire themselves or if it was already steamed up for them isn’t known, but as two men who worked together most days, they might have shared family news after the Sunday day of rest. Both driver Drysdale and his fireman, William George, had young families and lived in Fordell Estate cottages a short walk from the workshops. William had a 14-month-old daughter at home, his first child.

Whether driver Drysdale had any concerns about his engine isn’t clear. Alice was normally a reliable engine and, though there had been a slight escape of steam from her boiler four months earlier, nothing had happened since. They collected a train of loaded coal wagons from one of several mines at the north end of the line and hauled them the four and a half miles to St. David’s harbour, ready for loading onto a waiting ship. It was an easy run, downhill all the way. The railway had first been built in 1770 as a wooden-railed wagon-way, hauled by horses and with inclined planes on the steep sections, and had been in continuous use ever since. The rails were replaced with iron ones in 1833, and in 1868 steel rails and steam haulage was introduced, with the inclined planes by-passed.

They collected a train of 24 empty wooden chaldron wagons from St. David’s and, a little before one o’clock they began the run back up to Fordell, William shovelling coal into the firebox to get a head of steam for the long climb ahead of them. This time they carried two passengers on the footplate: Robert Muir Morton, the colliery manager, and John Duncan, the local school board inspector. His work took him throughout the parish and at 77 would have been glad of the ride up the hill to Fordell. All four men were well known to one another. Fordell village was a tight community of small “but and ben” two-roomed tied cottages, with most residents working in the estate’s mines or related trades. The two engine-men both lived in Mossgreen, a row of cottages near Fordell, and John Duncan lived in a slightly larger house in Springhill, a few yards away. As colliery manager, Morton lived at Ansonhill, a large villa between Fordell and Mossgreen. Despite their varied social standing, the four men all lived within 800 yards of one another.

After just over a mile, Drysdale brought the train to a stop with the locomotive alongside a cast-iron water tank built onto a high brick pedestal. He and Robert Morton walked some distance away to examine a water-meter, leaving John Duncan on the footplate whilst William busied himself with the hose, filling the locomotive’s water tank. Unknown to any of them, grooves had formed between the rows of rivets holding the boiler-plates together. At 1.15pm, with steam pressure a little over 115 pounds per square inch, the plates gave way, and the boiler exploded with devastating force.

The blast threw Alice off the rails and onto her side, and large parts of the cast iron and masonry of the water tower were destroyed. John Duncan was knocked unconscious, but was lucky to escape with minor injuries. William, who would have been outside the cab and standing close to the boiler, was not so lucky. When Morton and Drysdale ran back, they found he had been thrown a considerable distance, breaking both his legs and probably causing internal injuries. He was taken to Dunfermline Cottage Hospital, where he died the next day from shock and from his injuries.

William lived in a terraced row of two-roomed cottages, with his parents and siblings near neighbours. He and his wife, Janet had married just four years earlier. Their daughter Christina was born 14 months before the accident and, unusually amongst working-class families at this time, she had a middle name: Pitbladdo, the maiden name of William’s mother, a sign of how close the family were. No doubt the family rallied round the young widow, but another tragedy was to strike the following year when young Christina died of tuberculosis. The impact this must have had on Janet, aged 29, can only be imagined, but by 1901 she was resident in the Fife County Asylum in Cupar and appears to have remained there until her death 40 years later.

Two questions remain about this sad incident. The driver of Alice was probably Thomas Drysdale, but in 1891 there were actually two Drysdale brothers living in Mossgreen: Thomas and John. The official records of the explosion record the driver by surname only. Both were railway locomotive drivers, both lived in the same row of cottages and both had young families.

The other question is William George’s actual job before he died. I have described him here as a fireman, as that seems to have been the role he was carrying out at the time of the explosion, and the official report describes him as a stoker, effectively the same job. However, contemporary documents list his employment variably. In 1892 his marriage certificate describes him as a waggon shunter. His daughter’s birth certificate in 1895 describes him as brakesman (railway), whilst the valuation roll of the same year calls him a guard. On his death certificate he is described as a brakesman once again, and it’s likely that these are simply different interpretations of a variable role on a small industrial railway. Oddly, on his daughter’s death certificate in 1897 he is described as an engine driver (deceased). Perhaps at the time of his death he was learning the role of driver, in the expectation or hope of promotion. Or perhaps it is simply a sad case of his widow trying to embroider his memory.

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