page_title: Rail accidents at Carrbridge
section_title: 1914 bridge collapse
hierarchical_section_title: Rail accidents at Carrbridge / 1914 bridge collapse
caption_attribution_description: English: From The Sphere, 27 June 1914
context_page_description: There have been two rail accidents at Carrbridge, Scotland. One occurred in 1914, and the second in 2010.
context_section_description: On the afternoon of 18 June 1914, a tremendous thunderstorm struck the mountains to the north of the Highland Main Line. The road bridge carrying the road from Carrbridge to Inverness across the Baddengorm Burn was swept away, while further down the valley the burn entered a narrow gorge, crossed by the railway by means of a narrow arch span of only 15 ft (4.6 m). The water was at rail level when the six-carriage 11:50 Perth to Inverness train, 9 minutes late leaving Carrbridge Station at 15:24, crossed the bridge. The first two carriages reached the other side but the bridge then gave way, its foundations having been undermined by a vortex of water. The third carriage was left on the north bank of the burn but the next was plunged into the torrent which soon demolished the carriage, drowning five passengers; remarkably four survived.
  The enquiry laid no blame on the designers of the bridge as they could not have foreseen such a volume and force of water, which had never before occurred in the area.  The bridge was rebuilt with a longer, concrete, span.
caption: Photograph of the accident by J. Barron of Inverness, published in The Sphere, 27 June 1914
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