Recollections of the Kendal disaster in which 171 Jamaicans lost their lives in a trainwreck, to this day, the most fatal accident in Jamaica’s history, have been numerous. While there were the memories of those who were there, many have come to know the history of that fateful day, 64 years ago, through the pages of The Gleaner.

Published Tuesday September 3, 1957

171 killed in Excursion Train Wreck

Disaster near Kendal

700 injured of 1,600 on trip

Coaches break from engines, derail crash

WHOLESALE death and disaster rode the rails to Kendal last night. By midday today Jamaica’s worst railway accident by far and one of the gravest in world railway history had reached at least 171-159 bodies removed from the scene to Mandeville mortuary, and three deaths from injuries at Mandeville Public Hospital and nine at Spaldings with an estimated 600 to 700 injured.

About eleven o’clock last night, a train consisting of two diesel engines ahead of twelve wooden coaches crowded, with passengers reportedly about 1,600 the majority members of a day excursion organized by St. Anne’s Catholic Church. Kingston, and led by Rev. Father Eberle, S.J., was approaching Kendal, a small station prior to Williamsfield, on its way back to Kingston from Montego Bay.

The train was corning to a bend in the line, witnesses say at considerable speed because the coaches were swaying, and actually passing through a narrow cutting in rock, when there was a terrific jolting and swaying likened to an earthquake, and eight of the coaches were wrecked.

The brakes were either not applied or failed to act, since the engines came loose from the train and ran on for some distance before being brought to a stop.

One of the coaches, its superstructure razed to the flooring, remained on the lines and ran on for about a hundred yards. Of the remainder, five toppled into a gully beside the track, two remained in the cutting, one mounted its bank, the one behind was raised up so that its body came off the undercarriage and the front wheels were lifted off the line. Only the last two coaches remained undamaged.

Most of the passengers in the four rear coaches escaped unharmed but for shock and minor injuries such as cuts and bruises. The remaining coaches were in utter shambles, with dead and injured inside and underneath them, survivors screaming, calling for help or crying the names of relatives or friends.

Of the derailed coaches in the gully, one was smashed to silvers, with the wheels lying to one side: another was a mere, strip of smashed boarding lying partly on the wheels, partly on the roof of another coach lying at an angle and on its side; the next had broken in unequal parts, the larger (forward) section lying on its side, the smaller still on the line and coupled, but stripped of root and sides; the last had its side torn out; food, clothing and utensils could be seen strewn over the floor under the semi-collapsed roof.

The leading coach of the two in the gully was gutted and broken in half, the second wrecked but less extensively.

According to eye-witnesses, the engines after stopping briefly went on to Kendal, where the alarm was given. The Mandeville police were informed and under Superintendent W. S. Ashley, in charge of No. 3 Area, and Deputy Superintendent O. F. Bernard, in charge of the Manchester Division, set about organizing rescue work. Police were brought in from outstations with transport and from Spaldings, while a detachment of 15 under Sgt. McLean was on the spot from May Pen by 2 a.m. Nurse Donegan arrived early on from Mile Gully, reportedly alerted by her husband who works on the railway and Dr. Horace Henriques was brought by the police, being followed soon after by Dr. Olive Gordon of Mandeville and later by all the other doctors in the district, Nurses and dispensers were also called upon and responded willingly. Several first and posts were set up on the scene and others at Kendal station.

Great difficulty was at first experienced in getting out the injured since although the wreck was only a couple of laundered yards from the main road from Porus to Balaclava, the intervening terrain was very rough and almost impassable in the darkness. However, a bulldozer was made available by Alumna Jamaica Ltd, which set about digging a path from the main road to the scene. This eventually served to bring out many injured and some of the dead. A train of wagons was however made up at Kendal and hitched to one of the engines from the excursion train. They shuttled back and forth between the wreck and the station, first bringing injured persons for treatment and then uninjured survivors who had no reason to remain at the wreck. Eventually, a train came up from Porus to take the latter and any lightly injured persons to Kingston.

Meanwhile, ghastly scenes were being enacted at the site of the wreck. There was light but for a few lanterns and sires stocked with wreckage round which survivors huddled their faces, pallid and drawn, often streaked with blood and dust.  A few chattered, but for the most part, they stood, sat on lay silent, dazed with the tragedy of it. 

Father Eberle and another priest, who had been going among the crowd comforting the injured and blessing the dead, sat exhausted on one of the benches that had been pulled from the wrecked coaches. They said that Father Brennan had come from May Pen and three Passionist priests from Mandeville to help them in their tragic task. Voluntary helpers were present in scores, and the main road was lined for a long distance with all manner of vehicles.

Doctors and Nurses worked desperately to clean and bandage wounds and splint fractures, some on the banks of the track, some inside the coaches, while the injured tossed and moaned, cried or lay unconsciously. Many less seriously hurt wandered about, their clothes bloody or sat at the fires staring into space.

Gangs strove to extricate the still living from the wreckage under which they were pinned, sometimes finding corpses at the end. And the silent dead lay in rows on the banks, looking like bundles of dirty clothes as only the human body can when the spark of life has departed or in heaps under two of the coaches. One body was torn in two, the entrails spilling on the ground: heads and faces were smashed or horribly gashed: broken limbs sprawled at odd angles.

There were other piteous scenes too. A girl about seven was left away weeping and saying over and over again: “Ah got no mammy now, mammy gone dead, gone dead”.

 A well dressed elderly woman sat on the ground rocking to and fro and mourning her dead son, wishing herself dead too while relatives and bystanders tried awkwardly to comfort her. Women were weeping bitterly or saying “God have mercy” over and over like a litany. Men and women with tears running down their faces walked in and out of the packed grounds, calling names and looking into faces in the hope of finding some missing friends or relatives. A man, still conscious, but with smashed hands and foot, cried out while helpers tried to prize off him the wreckage that held him down.

At least the dawn showed through a dip in the hills to the west and the light spread to reveal the whole terrible scene which the darkness had shown up only bit by bit, episode by episode.

Only then could it be seen how great was the damage, how many dead were lying here and there, how many injured there still were. It showed also the tremendous work of rescue and relief that was going on as it had been since early in the morning.

Tragic as the occasion is, it has been lightened at least by the fine organization and selfless efforts of the hundreds of voluntary helpers, from the train passengers themselves, assisted each other and exhausted themselves to get the injured out, to the local residents who came from far and near to provide water, tea, coffee, food and transport for the survivors.

Besides the magnificent work done by the medical personnel of all ranks, on the spot and in the hospital, Mr. C. C. Michelin of Monymusk Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, organized ambulances and stretcher-bearers, of whom and of stretchers there were never enough. The police have done a splendid job throughout remaining on their feet and without food for many hours to help with rescue work, maintain order, guide the congested tragic and record the injured and dead.

The only policeman actually on the train was Corporal S. C. Davis of Montego Bay station. Who was in the leading coach but escaped with minor injuries. He too stayed on duty for hours until relieved. Police rigged hand ropes up the steep bank north of the track so that laden stretchers could be hauled up and loaded into vehicles.

Very good work was also done by the staff, Cadets and students of the West Indian Training College in Mandeville, who were early on the scene and helped with first aid, rescue and relief work all the night.

Tribute was paid by police officers and other witnesses to the contribution of Alumna Jamaica Ltd., which supplied many vehicles and willing hands and the heavy equipment with which to drive a road to the site and clear away the wreckage from the lines. Outstanding was Mr. Roger Hardy, Vehicle Superintendant at Kirkvine Works, who took charge of the wreckage operations and worked through the night and far into the day, worn and dirty but indefatigable to get the wreckage lifted and hauled away into the gully.

At Kendal station, bloodstained and distraught persons were equally in evidence and Nurses washed and bandaged while the piles of bloodstained gauze at their feet grew and grew. There, also, were crowds of people from the neighbourhood and even some who had dashed from Kingston on hearing of the disaster, fearing to find relatives dead or injured. Some stood staring pallid and apprehensive as injured people went by: or inquired over more despairingly from police and railways officials after missing relatives.

Railway officials were busy compiling lists of injured passing through the station and noting the names of dead persons reported to them: sending messages and directing the rail traffic that increased as the morning went on.

Back at the site of the accident, all the living and dead has been extricated from the wreckage by 9 a.m. and the dead were laid out ready to be taken away. It was at first intended to take them to Kendal and lay them out for identification on a grassy bank nearby, but the vast number of sightseers who by then milled about at both places paused the plan to be changed and instead the bodies were all taken to the Mandeville mortuary.

Work on the wreckage and lines (which had been spread at the point of derailments) continued all the morning. A telephone was tapped in and police and other messages sent and received at the spot. Soon after 11 a.m. the Acting Governor, the Hon. John Stow, arrived with his A.D.C. followed shortly by the Chief Minister, the Hon. Norman Manley and Col. R. T. Michelin, Commissioner of Police. The Acting Governor and Chief Minister afterwards visited the mortuary at Mandeville before leaving for Kingston.

By midday the last of the wreckage was being pulled out of the narrow cutting, a couple of stretcher-bearers standing by in case a body should come to light and soon after only the score marks on the side of the gully, the piles of wreckage at the bottom of it, and the holders of sightseers all around showed where one of the most tragic chapters in Jamaica’s history since the 1997earthquake has been written. The cause of the wreck is unsure and must no doubt wait for elucidation on an official inquiry, but several travellers remarked on the speed with which the train appeared to be travelling prior to the accident. One, who was in the fourth coach from last said that the excursionists were singing happily, but the train was swaying from side to side and then, suddenly, came the crash. Another member of Gleaner’s staff mentioned that the train gave “a great sway” about five minutes before the disaster and was moving at speed.

A teenager girl, who was also in the fourth coach, pointed out the body of her aunt lying in the cutting below and went on to speak of “trouble with a wheel of the engine” on the way to Montego Bay, where something was done to it, she said, and also on the way back. She said the wheel “gashed fire” and seemed to be “slipping”. Just before the crash, she continued, the train was moving fast when the first shock came, someone cried “wheel slip off”. “Then,” she finished, “everything come off”.

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