[2] A minute later the wreckage was struck by a northbound sleeping car express train travelling from London Euston to Glasgow Central.

At the time of the accident, normal northbound traffic through the section included two overnight sleeping car expresses, from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh, respectively, which were due to depart Carlisle at 5.50 am and 6.05 am.

If the sleepers ran late, the local service could not be held back to depart from Carlisle after them because precedence would then need to be given to the scheduled departure of rival companies' express trains at 6.30 am and 6.35 am.

Also, any late running of the local train would cause knock-on delays to a Moffat to Glasgow and Edinburgh commuter service, with which the stopper connected at Beattock.

With the Down loop occupied, night shift signalman Meakin decided to shunt the local passenger train onto the Up main line.

Arriving late aboard the local train, the early day shift signalman Tinsley reached Quintinshill signal box shortly after 6.30 am.

[14] The troop train had consisted of 21 vehicles; all were consumed in the fire, apart from the rear six, which had broken away during the impact and rolled back along the line a short distance.

[17] Simkins wrote in The Guardian in 2001: "I asked him about a story I had heard of an officer who went about the scene shooting men trapped in the burning wreckage.

[18] On 16 May 2015, the BBC reported Colonel Robert Watson, a senior retired army officer who had served with the Royal Scots, saying that he believed that some soldiers were "probably" shot in mercy killings.

The BBC said that while no official army records of the alleged shooting existed, "many reports written in the press at the time of the accident suggested that some trapped soldiers, threatened with the prospect of being burnt alive in the raging inferno, took their own lives or were shot by their officers".

[19] According to Earnshaw "Many were trapped inside the burning train; injured men with no hope of escape begged their rescuers to shoot them whilst gunfire added an eerie effect to the scene as small arms and rifle shells in the luggage vans began to explode in the intense heat.

The King sent a telegram to Caledonian Railway general manager Donald Mathieson expressing sympathy and asking to be kept informed of the recovery of those injured.

[23] Of the 500 soldiers of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots on the troop train, only 58 men were present for roll call at 4.00 pm that afternoon, along with seven officers.

The next morning, they went on by train to Liverpool, but on arrival there, they were medically examined: all the enlisted men and one officer were declared unfit for service overseas and were returned to Edinburgh.

[30] It was reported in the Edinburgh Weekly that on their march from the port to the railway station, the survivors were mistaken for prisoners of war and pelted by some children.

The sequence of events leading up to the collisions featured multiple breaches of the railway's regulations, which formed the basis of the later prosecution of both signallers.

[35] The changing of shifts was a safety-critical moment where it was essential that the signalman taking over the box was fully aware of the position of trains and for all block signalling requirements to be properly completed and recorded.

[8] Various railwaymen were required to visit the signal box as part of their duties, but it was expressly forbidden for such visitors to stay any longer than necessary due to the potential for the distraction of the signalman.

However, signal boxes were relatively comfortable places to spend time (having a stove, kettle and the company of the signalman), so there was a temptation for such visitors to linger.

[45] The coroner for Carlisle, T S Strong, asked for guidance from the Home Office and was instructed to conduct inquests on those who had died in England in the normal way.

[48] He concluded his summing up with:[49] If you find as a result of your deliberations that the rules and safeguards were broken by one or more of the railwaymen concerned, or in other words that they have been negligent, there remains one point which you must decide, and it is this.

If so it was manslaughter.The jury retired and an hour later came back with a verdict that the 27 people who were the subject of the inquest had died due to the gross negligence of Tinsley, Meakin and Hutchinson.

[51] The verdict of the English inquest was to leave Tinsley in an unusual position, as he was arrested by the Scottish authorities on 29 May 1915,[52] and charged with culpable homicide.

[55] After Sandeman's speech, Lord Strathclyde summed up to the jury, ending: At 6.43 am on the morning of the day in question, the men in the signal box at Quintinshill were asked to accept the troop train coming from the north.

[57] After hearing mitigation on behalf of the two Lord Strathclyde sentenced Tinsley to three years penal servitude and Meakin to eighteen months imprisonment.

It criticised the railway company's attitude to its own rules, which the documentary alleged it must have known were not routinely followed to the letter - arguing that the tardy practices of turning up late for a shift change would have, at the very least, been known to their immediate managers.

It also found fault with the railway company's desire to run a peacetime service to maintain profits, even though the network was experiencing extra war-time traffic.

It also criticised the railway company and the government for using the older wooden stock for the troop train, arguing that it was already known it was unsafe and in the process of withdrawal.

It also sought to take some blame away from Tinsley because he may have been suffering from a form of epilepsy which affected his short-term memory, which they argued would have explained why he might have simply not been aware of the waiting local train.

[71][72] Annual remembrance services are held at Rosebank Cemetery attended by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and the Royal Scots association.