It was the story which shocked Sheerness and put the Isle of Sheppey on the front page of every national newspaper.

A runaway train packed with 80 passengers ploughed through the buffers, demolished the ticket office and burst out of the railway station before coming to a halt on a taxi.

Incredibly, only one person died in the rush-hour disaster but 11 were injured.

We sift through the cuttings and meet some of the survivors who remembered the night the train didn't stop at Sheerness.

It began as just an ordinary day. But Friday, February 26, 1971, ended in a nightmare as a 10-carriage train full of commuters failed to stop at the end of the line and careered through the buffers at Sheerness-on-Sea railway station.

It was just before 7pm when 5.16 from London Victoria ploughed past the end of Platform One, smashed through a wooden wall and came to rest on the station’s forecourt opposite a sign saying Welcome To Sheerness.

On its way, the first carriage struck Joyce Kathleen Carr, 29, who had been buying a ticket to London at the booking office. She was dragged under the driver's cab and later pronounced dead.

One of her four brothers, Terry Osmond, had just dropped her off at the station.

At his home in Leysdown he recalled: "It wasn't until an hour or so later that I got a phone call from her friend who was still waiting at Victoria station to say Joyce hadn't arrived. There was no internet in those days so I had no idea what had happened. So I drove back to Sheerness.

"When I arrived, the whole place was in chaos. I asked the police what had happened and they said all the injured had been taken to Medway Accident Centre. At that stage no one knew anyone had died so I drove to Medway. But they had no record of my sister."

Mystified, he returned to Sheppey and called into Sheerness police station which was almost next door to the railway. While there, he overheard a radio message breaking the news that a woman's body had been found. It was down to him to identify his sister's body at Sheppey General Hospital and then break the news to their parents and brothers at Cliff Gardens, Minster.

Trapped

Two people survived after being pinned under the wreckage.

Former Sittingbourne Borden Grammar School pupil John Hawkins was 17 and had arrived on an earlier train from London, where he was working as a clerk, to meet friends. He was mown down as he waited for them in the booking hall and spent an hour trapped in darkness under the train while fireman desperately borrowed a heavy-duty jack from Hollands fairground opposite to lift the 300-ton train off him.

He was taken to hospital but later released bruised but otherwise unhurt. He returned to his parents’ home in Minster in time to watch footage of the crash make the lead item on that night’s News At Ten.

He said: "The daft thing is that I should never have been there. I always used to get on and off the train at Queenborough. But that night I had travelled on to Sheerness 15 minutes earlier to meet friends who, ironically, were on that train."

The other person trapped beneath the train was Olive Holloway, 57, of Borough Road, Queenborough. She suffered cuts to her legs.

There were many other tales of miraculous escapes.

The taxi driver's tale

Taxi driver Terry Baker, now of Medway Road, Sheerness, was sitting in his cab in the rank when the train burst through the outside wall. He missed death by inches as the iron buffers rammed into the side of his car and debris rained down on the roof.

The father-of-three said: "I was working part-time for Sheerness Taxis and had driven the firm's Cambridge into the station forecourt to pick up fares. The engine was still running when a friend yelled out 'Quick Terry, there's a train coming.'

"Suddenly I heard a big bang, looked around and saw this iron buffer coming straight towards me. I thought 'This is it' and dived across the gear lever."

The train rammed into the side of his cab as the rest of the station;s roof landed on the car. Terry added: "I am convinced I saw the train driver step out of his cab and look around in a daze."

Nearby, he spotted a man trapped in a telephone box which had swivelled round in the impact

In those days there wasn't much counselling. So Terry's boss Colin Pay arrived and presented the shocked cabbie with the keys to another taxi. Terry remembered: "He said if I didn't get back behind the wheel quickly I might be too frightened to ever do it again. My first fare was a man from Minster who wanted to get to the station because he had heard a taxi driver had been killed by a train. I told him he was wrong and I was still very much alive."

He added: "It could have been much worse. An hour before there had been hundreds of parents waiting to collect their children who had been on a school trip to London."

Train crash baby

Pamela Gordon was expecting her second child when she thought her husband, ticket collector Martin, had been injured in the crash. The shock sent her into labour two weeks early and baby Jennifer arrived at midnight.

Pamela, of Manor Close, Rushenden, said: "It was certainly a night to remember. We were living in Queensway and my husband was at work at Sheerness when I saw a newsflash on the TV that there had been a train crash. At the same time I saw a policeman walking up our path and immediately thought the worst.

"He had called to tell me Martin was OK but would be late home. But by then I was already in labour with the shock."

She learned later that her husband, who should have been in the ticket box which was crushed by the train, had been saved because he had returned to the staff room at the last minute to collect his ticket clippers. He stayed to sit with injured Olive Holloway until she was pulled clear.

By the time he returned home Jennifer had been born at Sheppey General Hospital. As a mark of respect, the couple gave her the middle name of Joyce in memory of the woman who died that night.

Pamela said: "Every time I walk past that station I remember how it used to be and think back to that terrible night. It started off so normal and then nothing was normal again."

Mr Gordon died in 2009 aged 69. He never worked on that station again. Jennifer now lives in Sittingbourne and has three children of her own.

Station staff

Booking office clerk Mick Robinson, 54, was brushed aside by the train as it roared through the building at 20mph sweeping his office and Mrs Carr with it and scattering tickets into the air.

Mr Robinson, of Alexandra Road, Sheerness, recalled: “I looked up and suddenly there was the train coming at me. Before I had time to think, I was knocked over and found myself under it.”

For more than an hour he refused to leave his post but eventually agreed to go to Sheppey General Hospital after securing all his tickets and cash. He was kept in overnight and treated for scratches and bruises.

In those days there was a book stall on the station. Its owner William Wood, 72, of Thames Avenue, Sheerness, was shutting up shop when the train crashed through.

He said: “I heard shouts and saw some great thing coming towards me. I thought ‘This is it’ so I just closed my eyes and ducked. I had served in the trenches in the First World War and the noise reminded me of the shells coming over. There was shouting and screaming. It was horrible. I was so numbed I couldn’t dial 999 properly.”

The Passengers

Victor Tullett, of Marine Parade, Sheerness, had been in the front carriage but managed to scramble free and escaped with only a bump to his head.

He said: “We had no idea the train was not going to stop until the last moment. It had been slowing down and all the passengers were on their feet ready to get out when we felt the first bump. Then it just went on and on.”

Fellow passenger Ray Titheridge, of Rosemary Avenue, Halfway, said: “I heard a loud bang and then a series of crashes. People were shouting and screaming. The carriage shuddered and continued shuddering. It got worse and worse until it was literally shaking.

“All the lights went off, the girl opposite was forced back into her seat and I pushed hard with my feet bracing myself against the opposite seat. When I stood up and looked out it was very dark. I tried to see what was below me but I couldn’t tell if it was rails or the platform.”

The Nurses

Nurse Jean Stapleford, a sister at Sheppey General Hospital, had been waiting at the station to greet her daughter Linda, a student nurse at Chelsea Women’s Hospital who was returning to the Island for the weekend.

Mrs Stapleford said: “The ticket collector shouted something like ‘run’ and we both rushed into the nearby gents’ toilets for safety. It all happened so quickly. I climbed over the debris searching for my daughter.”

Linda was found safe and, although shocked, the two nurses stayed to help the injured.

The injured

A fleet of ambulances took the 11 injured to Medway Accident Centre. Among them was train driver James Rothwell from London and the guard Ernest William File from Ramsgate. Both were discharged after treatment.

Others were: Christine Collins of Sheerness who had a broken hip; Malcolm Corbett of Minster with a head injury; Hazel Sailes of Sheerness (broken arm and collar bone); Dennis Price of Sheerness; Henry Robinson of Sheerness; Stanley Mannering of Sittingbourne and Dorothy Lynn of Kemsley.

The clean-up

Engineers with a heavy-duty steam crane worked throughout the night and under floodlights to winch the train back onto the rails. The front carriage was the last to be removed at 6am on the Saturday.

Incredibly, rail services were running again on the Sunday after a temporary booking office was built at the station.

The whole building was later demolished and replaced with the present one.

The coverage

The Island's newspaper the Sheerness Times Guardian, which had published as normal that Friday morning, hurried out an emergency edition.

Editor Peter Coleman, who now lives in Queensland, Australia, recalled: "This happened in the days when the paper was still printed using hot metal at its own premises in Railway Road next to the station.

"Getting the words and pictures together was relatively easy although there were no digital cameras in those days. The photographers had to go back to the darkroom to develop their film and print up black and white photographs. Some of them were pretty graphic.

"But printing a special edition was a nightmare. We asked one Linotype operator, David Sarjeant, to come in mid-morning on Saturday to set the text. Production manager Norman Parker laid out the page, made the big semi-cylindrical printing plates, which were cast in lead, and ran the press.

"We printed a complete edition with the news of the crash on the front and then distributed copies to the Island's newsagents. In 1971 there was no internet, no website and no social media. Everyone just took it for granted we would get the news out."

Reporters Colin and Lynne Johnson had been married for just over a year and were working on rival papers. Lynne was on the Sheerness Times Guardian and Colin was on the North East Kent Times.

Colin, now a retired priest, said: "We both still remember that night well. We had planned a nice Friday evening at home when we both spotted a lot of emergency vehicles going past our flat. I called the fire brigade and was told there had been an incident at Sheerness railway station.

"We jumped in the car and were greeted by the sight of a train embedded in the side of a taxi on the station forecourt. These days the police would have sealed off the area but we had free run of the place. Both of our respective photographers were covering a function at the Wheatsheaf Hall. It was before mobile phones so we had to run to get them.

"Although we considered ourselves hardbitten journalists at the time the events that evening left us both very shaken."

One of the first photographers on the scene was Times Guardian chief photographer Bob Leitch who was living in Trinity Road and heard the sirens. He said: "When I reached the station I was greeted by a shocking scene. I learned quickly there had been a fatality. Given what had happened it was fortunate there weren't more injuries.

"I received a bonus for working through the night. I think it was £10, almost half a week's wages."

Also on the scene was Mike Smith who now lives in Sittingbourne. He was working on the rival North East Kent Times. He said: "I had just got home when Colin Johnson came knocking. He said there had been a train smash so we raced to the station. As I was running I could see the train sticking out the front of the station and started taking pictures.

"If it had happened a few hours earlier it would have ploughed into boys from the Sheerness Technical School waiting to go home to Sittingbourne."

One of Mike's photos ended up on the front page of the Daily Mirror the following day and netted him £75.

Why did it happen?

The official investigation into the crash was published on December 14, 1971.

The inspector ruled out brake failure and found driver James Rothwell, 48, of Blackheath Road, London, had probably lost consciousness seconds before the train hit the buffers.

Mr Rothwell claimed he had no memory of the incident.

The inquiry heard that almost exactly a year before, on February 28 1970, Mr Rothwell had fallen off a chair in the drivers' lobby at Holborn Viaduct station as he picked up a newspaper and hit his head, knocking him unconscious for eight minutes.

After being detained in hospital overnight, doctors could find nothing wrong and he was allowed back to work. British Rail did not allow him to drive a train until July 1970.

The inspector described him as a "frank and open witness" although "shocked and frightened."

The train had been 663-feet long, weighed 336 tons and ended up 12-feet outside the station. The force of the crash knocked out the station's main roof girder, all its lights and railway telephones. Live cables were left dangling from the ceiling which hindered rescuers at first.

The new station was built with the ticket office to one side to avoid similar casualties in the future. Additional buffers and ballast were added to all end-of-line stations following the disaster.