Hawick [2nd]
Found during a visit to Burnfoot cemetery.
'Sacred to the memory of John Turnbull Spiers who was accidentally killed at Newcastle-on-Tyne Central Railway Station 10th September 1912 Aged 68 years and in the 50th year of his service with the N.B.R. Company.'
The headstone also recalls his wife Janet and daughter Martha.
John Messner, Glasgow Riverside Museum, has sent me newspaper extracts from the Hawick News and Border Chronicle 13 September 1912 from which we learn
' ... Mr Spiers left as usual from Hawick to Newcastle on Tuesday morning. The accident happened just before starting from Newcastle to Hawick on the return journey in the forenoon. Deceased left his engine to go to the platform, and was in the act of returning when he was run down by an engine and carriages coming in an opposite direction. Death was instantaneous. Mr Spiers was a well known and highly esteemed townsman, and was one of the oldest engine drivers in the service of the N. B. Railway. He was a native of Nettleflat, parish of Heriot; and had he lived till next April he would have completed fifty years service on an engine, for forty six of which he had been engine driver. He had run the train between Hawick and Newcastle for over thirty years, and his ability as a driver is borne ample testimony to in the fact he had never made a mistake or accident worth mentioning. The total mileage of his railway journeys will be between two and three million miles, the longest journey which he has performed on his engine in one day being 300 miles ... '
His death was also recorded in the Southern Reporter of the 12th.
Location: Hawick [2nd]
Original line: Border Union Railway (North British Railway)
Photographer: Bruce McCartney
Contact photographer: Bruce McCartney
Date: 08/01/2017
Image number: 58024
Other photographs of Hawick [2nd] on RailScot
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