'Acts of God'

As I understand it lawyers define 'Acts of God' as something so impossible to foresee that no-one could be blamed for not thinking about it.

One of the more remarkable 'Acts of God' in railway history was the Owencarrow Viaduct accident of 1925. The Owencarrow River is in northern County Donegal in Ireland, just a couple of miles from the ocean and in winter it gets pretty windy up there. Some years ago I camped a little along the coast from this spot and it was breezy enough in mid-summer.

One dark January night a train was actually blown off Owencarrow viaduct, right over the edge. The driver had realised that the weather was very bad and slowed down to walking pace but the hurricane took the whole train over the parapet. I wonder if it has ever happened elsewhere in railway history.

The viaduct was on the Londonderry and Lough Swilly's 'Burtonport Extension' - an Irish 3' gauge line out to the far west. There are still plenty of relics of the route left although it closed in the 1940's, but sadly not this viaduct.

I came across this picture of the bridge on the internet tonight here. Actually it gave me a smile - the viaduct is a good likeness but the train in the picture looks like Irish 5'3" gauge - the locomotive might be a Great Northern of Ireland 4-4-0. I'd guess it's by a local artist who worked from postcards