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5. Dennis Ogborn was travelling on the “Holywood Motor Train” which ran into the back of the Bangor train

Dennis Ogborn was a passenger on the second train involved in the crash.

Shortly after the train from Bangor (with Georgina McKeown on board) left Holywood, it was followed by the push-pull “Motor Train”. One of the passengers was Dennis Ogborn. The locomotive was at the rear of this train so Isaac McQuillan was driving it from the small compartment at the front of the “motor coach”.

At Sydenham, the motor-train was stopped by an automatic signal. It was protecting the Bangor train which had been stopped by another signal on the approach to Ballymacarrett Junction. After waiting for two minutes at the automatic signal, as required by the signalling regulations, Driver McQuillan proceeded at what he would later insist was “caution”, 8-10mph. His train stopped at Victoria Park Halt and then continued towards Belfast. It quickly ran into a thick band of fog but moments later it ran into something much more solid, the 07.10 train from Bangor.

The leading motor-coach left its front bogie and ploughed through the rear carriage of the Bangor train and the last two compartments of the next carriage. 19 passengers on the Bangor train were killed and many more injured. Three more would later die in hospital.

Dennis Ogborn described his journey that morning and told how he tried to help some of the injured passengers on the Bangor train.

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2 minutes